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Feeling safe and confident while taking walking, wheeling and cycling journeys sounds simple.
Yet, many people face significant physical and mental barriers using active travel modes in their local area. Expert design can help address these challenges and create inclusive opportunities for physical activity built into daily life.
Applied have seen a way to support people taking active travel journeys. We have a vision for transforming the disjointed walking and cycling infrastructure that is scattered across the UK into a consistent, accessible, and enduring system.
Introducing the Pathways Project
The UK has a road sign system that works seamlessly. Rules and guidelines that are an accepted part of society, making driving safe and efficient. However, this wasn’t always the case. Before the 1960s, there was a confusing and overwordy way of communicating crucial directional, regulatory and awareness information.
This sets a precedent, showing that it is possible to adopt a standardised system that gives vehicle users the freedom to safely and confidently move where they want. Why not create the same for pedestrians, wheelchair users, and cyclists?
The Pathways Project aims to create an inclusive national wayfinding system for walking, wheeling and cycling. Based on tested, user-centred principles, the system encompasses a network of local, regional and national signed routes. This infrastructure can be affordably implemented by local authorities in a way suited to each community, using centralised, high-quality guidance and standards.
What is active travel?
Often used interchangeably as a term to refer to walking and cycling, active travel is so much more than just those two modes of transport. Active travel is any trip made in a physically active way, and wheeling should always be included within this. Journeys made using, or with the aid of, wheelchairs, mobility scooters, rollators, adapted cycles, e-cycles, scooters, as well as cycle sharing schemes, are all part of an active travel network.
Addressing health, travel and environment challenges together
One in four people in the UK do less than 30 minutes physical activity per week according to Sport England.1 Physical inactivity is also associated with one in six deaths in the UK and costs an estimated £7.4billion annually.2
Supporting people to take active travel journeys addresses this issue of inactivity, whilst reducing unnecessary emissions from short car trips. Studies also show the significant impact physical activity and being outdoors, particularly in proximity to nature and green spaces, has on mental health.3 Increasing active travel will improve the physical and mental health of the nation, and encourage exploration and connection within communities.
Overcoming uncertainty
Many people are hesitant about walking, wheeling or cycling journeys. We have worked with partners to create a prototype Inclusive Wayfinding Toolkit that empowers local authorities to implement an effective system for pathways in their region that tackles the causes of uncertainty. It outlines a set of core principles for three areas, directional (supporting people navigate to their destination), awareness (building understanding of the locality and confidence to explore an area and its amenities), and behavioural (communicating expectations and appropriate active travel behaviour to help everyone feel safe and respected).
Designed and tested around the public, with accessibility at the forefront, the prototype toolkit was researched in its first iteration with older people (60+) at the centre. This included people with a broad range of disabilities, such as mobility, memory, and visual impairments, as well as those who are anxious about walking, cycling or navigation.
Pilots of this system are taking place across the UK that will collect data from research to prove impact and identify improvements. This will enable the refinement of the toolkit and the development of a tested, inclusive system that could be rolled out nationwide, creating long-term benefits for our bodies, our minds, our communities and the environment.
