Managing Travel Demand

We increasingly live in congested and constrained cities. In many cases, our urban transport corridors are unable to support more private car trips during busy periods, and our centres unable to support more private car parking. Travel Demand Management (‘TDM’) is a way to respond to this reality, by helping enable each of us to make smarter travel choices about how, when and where we travel. In a sense, TDM allows us to “squeeze more movement” through our constrained urban environments.

The Flow team has experience applying TDM effectively to provide a variety of benefits. For the general public, these benefits can range from having more choices of travel modes, reduced travel times, and reduced travel-related costs. For local and central government, effective TDM allows for better optimisation of existing transport networks. For organisations, TDM allows for better use of limited car parking resources.

TDM plans can be developed at a national, local, and community level as well as for individual organisations, companies, and educational establishments. The key to the success of these plans is having a sustainable approach with buy-in from stakeholders, to ensure that the travel plan is implemented as a whole and that it continually evolves, supported by an effective communications programme.

Incentivising and enabling travel modes through engineering and logistical measures

Engineering TDM measures are often needed to provide incentives so that travel by non-car modes is more attractive and feasible for individuals. For example, managing parking provision to prioritise ride sharing and providing in bus lanes to give buses a time advantage over general traffic.

In addition, it’s important to ensure that logistical measures are in place including secure bicycle parking, and providing places for people to shower/change at the end of their trip and facilities to store personal belongings.