Sustainable transport projects
We are committed to making sustainable travel an attractive, realistic choice for journeys in Kent.
We promote sustainable transport options, active travel (walking and cycling) and encourage the switch to alternatively fuelled vehicles.
This will help to improve air quality, reduce congestion on the roads, and help promote health and wellbeing in Kent.
To meet these ambitions, we work with a variety of partners to secure sustainable and active travel funding to fund projects across Kent.
For more information on our projects, email kentconnected@kent.gov.uk or visit Kent Connected.
Sustainable travel for education
Working with partners, we aim to combat issues such as inactivity, congestion, and pollution around schools by reducing the volume of cars used on the school run.
We offer cycle training for children at primary and secondary schools across Kent for children in year 5 and above.
Our courses give children the skills and confidence to ride a bike safely on the road.
Every May, we encourage parents and pupils to think about their school run and challenge them to travel more sustainably to school, whether it be by walking, cycling, scooting, using public transport, or car sharing.
If journeys are too far, then we'd like pupils to challenge their parents to switch their routine and try to ‘park and stride’ to school.
The schools with the most recorded active and sustainable journeys are rewarded with prizes.
We have sadly had to postpone this year’s competition due to coronavirus (COVID-19).
For more information on the competition, visit the Operation Motion website.
Our award winning responsible parking initiative offers advice and resources to help schools run their own campaigns to promote a safer school environment.
We also provide 'school runners' with ideas on how they can travel to school more actively, and encourage other drivers to park considerably and safely.
We offer grants to schools for improvements to active and sustainable travel infrastructure on the school’s site.
This may include, but is not limited to, grants towards cycle or scooter storage, welly storage, electric vehicle charging points, or improvement to on site walking routes.
Applications for 2020 to 2021 have now closed but we hope to offer this funding again next year.
A school travel plan sets out how a school will promote safer, active and sustainable travel to school. The goal being to reduce the number of children being driven to and from school.
We support registered Kent schools to create their own travel plans on our Jambusters website. Schools registered with Jambusters can also access other resources, such as our travel data collection templates.
Sustainable travel for all
We encourage sustainable travel for businesses to improve employee health and wellbeing, reduce congestion and improve air quality.
We provide cycle training for adults of any age to enable and encourage them to cycle more safely, more often.
Courses are tailored to suit all learner needs and include Learn to Ride, Confident Road Cycling and Advanced Cycling.
We have commissioned Co-Wheels to provide our staff access to electric hybrid vehicles during the working day to assist in more sustainable access to meetings and site visits.
This allows staff to leave their car at home and travel into the office more actively or sustainably.
We participate in the government approved scheme which helps staff acquire a bike, and safety accessories, to encourage and facilitate cycling to work.
We have developed Kent Connected, a journey planning application to help you plan your door-to-door journey in Kent, that shows different transport options available.
It shows real time travel information with a focus on active and sustainable travel, and now features Explore Kent routes, an Ordnance Survey map layer, and cycling routes to help you plan your journey, or help you during a journey.
Kent and Medway have teamed up to offer a lift share platform, Kent & Medway Journey Share, to help commuters find car share buddies to reduce single occupancy car journeys, help to improve air quality, reduce congestion, save money and bring the community together.
We secured funding, through the Department for Transport’s Access Fund, to deliver a variety of projects to help facilitate and encourage active and sustainable travel with a focus on accessing work, education and training.
Some of the projects include bike loans, creating walk and cycle maps for towns, cycle videos, behaviour change events, and park and pedal schemes.