As reported in the Business Post earlier this week, Ireland’s National Transport Authority (NTA) is currently working on the development of a “Smarter Travel Mark”, a new accreditation-based scheme to help promote green, sustainable travel. Here are our thoughts on where this fits into the government Climate Action Plan, what it means for Local Authorities in terms of policy development, and indeed what it might mean for individuals working with Ireland’s 31 Local Authorities.
The Smarter Travel Mark is one of the key parts of the government’s Climate Action strategy to reduce emissions and encourage a significant shift to sustainable travel modes. It remains to be seen how significantly the initiative will differ from the NTA’s existing Smarter Travel for Workplaces program, which has been running since 2009 and, at the time of writing, had 176 registered organisations. A separate but similar program, Smarter Travel for Campuses, is aimed at third level education institutions.
The national Sustainable Mobility Policy (SMP), published by the Department of Transport in April 2022, included proposals to extend the scope of the existing NTA program to a broader range of companies, as well as improving the assessment toolkits available to participating organisations.
The strategic importance of the Smarter Travel Mark in encouraging a shift to sustainable transport modes was further underlined in October 2022 when it was announced as one of thirty-five key Pathfinder Programmes which will, over the next two years, support and drive the implementation of the SMP’s goals.
As well as offering guidance on Workplace Travel Plans for well over ten years, NTA has been providing a range of supports to organisations participating in the existing program, such as access to a Smarter Travel Consultant. Until now, however, participation in the “Partner” program has been limited to organisations with more than 250 employees.
It will be interesting to see how the new Smarter Travel Mark will be made both accessible and attractive to Ireland’s large SME sector, and to what extent it will embrace digital solutions which have proven to be successful in encouraging shifts in travel behaviours internationally.
The listing of organisations participating in the current Smarter Travel program includes nine government departments, twenty-seven hospitals, seventeen Local Authorities and twenty other state bodies, as well as over one hundred private sector businesses.
While participation in the existing program is voluntary, one imagines that public sector organisations of all hues will be strongly encouraged to achieve the Smarter Travel Mark, not least the fourteen Local Authorities and many other bodies that aren’t part of the current NTA initiative.
Indeed, the role that public sector bodies are expected to play in achieving emissions reduction was underlined clearly in Chapter 10 of CAP23, Public Sector Leading by Example, which outlined that in working to achieve the proposed Smarter Travel Mark, public bodies should
“lead on the development of workplace sustainable mobility hubs and consider the mechanisms to reduce car-based office commuting”.
One hopes that the Irish Smarter Travel Mark will build on international best practice schemes such as the UK’s Modeshift STARS program that has become the industry standard there, with 108 out of 152 UK Local Authorities participating in its five-tier accreditation system for organisational Travel Plans.
NTA has advised that the launch of the Smarter Travel Mark could happen by the summer of this year.
If you’d like to learn more about implementing Smarter Travel or Workplace Travel Plans, please drop us a line at alan@ireganadvisors.ie.