Healthy Travel Wales Day 2023 

Thursday 29 September 2023 marks this years’ Healthy Travel Wales Day, a day championing sustainable travel such as walking, cycling and public transport.

Why we need to change how we travel 

According to Healthy Travel Wales, we urgently need to change how we move around for the sake of the planet and our health.  

Our reliance on cars for regular transport has contributed to sedentary lifestyles, air pollution, social isolation, and the climate emergency, and that more of the same isn't an option. 

Declining levels of physical activity, increasing levels of obesity and diabetes, widespread air pollution, social isolation, and worsening health inequalities are all pressing public health issues. 

​Climate change is a severe threat which is already being felt in the UK and across the world. Changing patterns in the way we travel and how we design our environments for travel have played a significant role in these issues.  

Bold action is required in Wales if we are to reverse these trends in population and global health and create a healthier more sustainable future. 

To tackle this, organisations across Wales are showing their commitment to healthier and more sustainable forms of transport, by publicly signing a Healthy Travel Charter. Each Charter contains a series of commitments the organisation will make over 2 or 3 years to support their staff and visitors to walk and cycle more, take public transport, and switch to electric vehicles. 

Healthy Travel Charters 

With support from Public Health Wales, we are partnering with Public Service Boards to rollout Healthy Travel Charters across Wales.  

Each Charter sets out a series of commitments signatory organisations agree to implement to support staff and visitors to walk, cycle and take public transport. 

There are now Charters in place in Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan, Gwent, Swansea Bay, and for businesses, and we are developing Charters in other areas of Wales and with other sectors too. ​ 

Signatory organisations have started to populate an interactive healthy travel map for their main sites, showing bike racks, showers, electric vehicle (EV) chargers and nearby public transport stops, to help people travel sustainably.   

Last year we managed to complete the pledges we made when we signed the Cardiff Healthy Travel charter and this year we’ve completed the charter commitments for Gwent as well. This means we’ve managed to:

• Reduce the proportion of journeys commuting to and from work made by car from 87% to 77%
• Increase the proportion of staff who use public transport to travel to and from work from 3% to 8%
• Increase the proportion of staff who work from home 1 or more days per week from 14% to 25%
• Increase the proportion of vehicles used during the day which are ultra-low emission from 1% to 5%

Find out what healthy travel is about in this short animation by Healthy Travel Wales.