The Department for Transport published the ‘Making Smarter Choices Work’ report at the end of 2004. This report proposed that soft measures, now called Smarter Choices could reduce traffic congestion at peak times locally by up to 21% and make life more pleasant for local people. Whilst these sorts of reductions are highly aspirational, Nottingham City Council strongly believes that such a package will certainly provide benefits and will, therefore, extend the elements of work that it has been doing throughout the first LTP to include the wider package of measures as detailed below

Smarter Choices include local programmes to encourage school, workplace and individual travel planning; improving public transport information and marketing; setting up web sites for car share schemes and supporting car clubs and encouraging teleworking and teleconferencing. The Department for Transport identified particular success where local authorities promote Smarter Choices ‘vigorously’. Nottingham City Council has a positive track record of implementing many of the elements of the Smarter Choice programme over the past 10 years. The following table demonstrates the work that Nottingham City Council has undertaken to deliver Smarter Choices at a local level.

In response to the Smarter Choice publication at the end of 2004, Nottingham City Council has established a Smarter Choice Strategy and Action Plan. This action plan contributes to the national shared priorities to reduce congestion, improve accessibility, achieve safer roads and improve air quality and local priorities identified in the second Local Transport Plan to promote economic regeneration and improve quality of life.  The ‘Strategy / Plan for Developing and Implementing School Travel Plans’ provides further information about the School Travel Plan element of the Smarter Choices programme. The Smarter Choices strategy sets out nine aims for the next five years.

The City Council intends to actively promote smarter choices through LTP and other funding sources. This will include measures that are already highly developed as well as measures and initiatives that are new to the City Council. A more detailed list of work to be undertaken during LTP2 is outlined in the Smarter Choices Action Plan below, but these measures and initiative will include:

• Workplace travel plans - The Council will continue to build and expand the successful workplace travel plan grant scheme TransACT in partnership with Nottingham City Council and business groups. The scheme provides advice, guidance and funding to companies working to reduce sole car journeys, both in the course of work and for the actual journeys to work. This initiative helped the authority meet its targets in this area during LTP1 and has been reviewed and refreshed to maximise the potential outcomes of the process for LTP2
• Travel awareness campaigns - The Council will continue to support travel awareness campaigns at a national, regional and local level and will establish a yearly campaign of events across the Local Transport Plan area in Nottingham
• Partnership working - It is an active member of the Association of Commuter Transport (ACT) and a member of the National Travelwise Association. The City Council works closely with development control to ensure that travel plans, car parking standards and transport impact assessment issues are addressed efficiently.
• Personalised travel plans will be used to support the work of Local Accessibility Transport Studies (LATS)
• Complementary infrastructure - In support of Smarter Choices it is important to implement complementary infrastructure measures to lock in the benefits. These will include a programme of walking and cycling schemes, bus priority measures, traffic calming and stringent parking control measures. These are described elsewhere in the LTP, along with issues on School Travel Plans
• School Travel Plans - The work specific to school travel plans are also integrated into the overall Smarter Choices activities.

For more details about Smarter Choices in Nottingham please contact Jeremy Prince, Transport Partnership Officer on 0115 9155 141 or email jeremy.prince@nottinghamcity.gov.uk