Dr Suzanne Audrey from the School of Social and Community Medicine at the University of Bristol provides details of her research about businesses and their potential to support stall walking to work. She provides some top tips on promoting walking to work and signposts to many sources of further information.

1. Walking to work
Dr Suzanne Audrey
School of Social and Community Medicine

2. Why walk?
• Walking is ‘nearest activity to perfect exercise’ (Hardman
& Morris, p328, 1997)
• Low cost, year round, repeatable, habit forming
• Seen as safer, less direct competition with motorized
vehicles for roadspace, than cycling
• Can be easily combined with public transport use
• Being physically active:
• reduces the risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, colon
and breast cancer and Alzheimer’s disease
• helps maintain a healthy weight, improves cholesterol levels,
reduces blood pressure
• builds healthy muscles and bones, improves balance, reduces
the risk of falls …

3. Hourly pattern of weekday physical activity by travel mode
Audrey et al. International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and
Physical Activity 2014:11;37

4. Segmentation of journeys
Measure To work From work
Time (mins) 21.9 28.6
MVPA (mins) 19.8 21.0

5. Proportion of people in employment in Bristol who commute
to work by mode (Jayne Mills, Bristol City Council)
7.3
13.5
56.8
4.6
15.6
2.2
8.5
11.4
52.3
7.5
18.5
1.8
0.0
10.0
20.0
30.0
40.0
50.0
60.0
Work mainly
at/from home
Public Transport
Total
Car total Bicycle On foot Other
%peopleinemployment
2001 2011

6. Employers’ views*: Resistance
“I would find it really offensive if I had that in my objectives,
like who the hell are you to tell me I have to have ‘walking
to work’?”
“Once they get to work, then they’re working. But before
they get here, as far as I’m concerned, they do what they
please.”
“There isn’t a benefit to the organisation, therefore I don’t
think the organisation should be doing that. I think if people
themselves want to do it ... it’s not a workplace initiative.”
* In-depth interviews with 29 Bristol employers (small, medium and
large workplaces)

7. Employers’ views: Cynicism
“We’re seen as sort of the faceless bureaucratic lumbering
giant of an organisation, and so I think generally our
expectations of people’s engagement is quite low.”
“I think we’re having a bit of a backlash. I mean, not
amongst people who are already busy and active, but
amongst people who aren’t. They’re fed up at being
preached at by people.”
“There’s only a few of us here that have to deal with
everything on the site - like the energy, the recycling, the
waste. I mean green transport is quite a big part of our job
but it’s not the major part, we just really, really don’t have
the time.”

8. Employers’ views: Cynicism
“If staff perceive this as being a cost saving initiative on the
part of their employer, I think they will automatically do the
opposite and they will resist.”
“They work really hard, they work weekends, then they go
on holiday for two weeks and they don’t really have any,
any worries, or they don’t really think about these sort of
things in more detail, if you get what I mean.”
“If somebody doesn’t recognise themselves that walking is
good for them, and they would rather get in the car, I don’t
think an employer can really change that.”

9. “We’ve had the travel plan since 2008 and we’re
reviewing it at the moment because obviously it is now
out of date. To be honest the walking initiatives will
probably just remain as they are. We’ll just role them
forward to the next year because there is ... very little we
can do to really actively promote it.”
“Some people don’t even think about the walking side ...
We don’t have that many schemes for walkers like we do
for cyclists and motor cyclists and public transport users.”
Employers’ views: Uncertainty

10. Employers’ views: Support
“It’s not a legal responsibility but it, it would be good
practice to do that on several levels - on health of the
employees, the reduction of the CO2 omissions and other
things into the environment.”
“She walks in but she doesn’t start ‘til nine, and she’s
asked if she can I start at eight o’clock and finish at five ‘so
it’s lighter in the evening when I walk back, it’s safer’ ... It’s
looking at that side of it and seeing what would work for
them and what helps them.”

11. Employers’ views: Support
“You can pretty much guarantee how long it’s going to take
you to walk so, you know, if you’ve got a 30 minute journey
it’s going to take you 30 minutes … Where, you know, my
personal journey [by car] can take anything from 20
minutes to get in, to over an hour.”
“We don’t have much parking here so it would be good if
more people did walk in rather than vying for space ...
there’s always a fight for their spaces ... it can cause quite
a lot of problems.”
“It’s much, much cheaper than other alternatives such as
us funding expensive car parks or buses.”

12. Employers’ views: Support
“They will be fitter and more lively and more able to perform
at work I suppose would be the, the materialistic way of
looking at it.”
“It’s also a reputation thing as well. People want to know
that you promote that kind of thing and that you actually
encourage it because it looks good in the local community.”
“We have got quite a number of clients in the kind of
renewable and environmental sector, so again that’s
something that we do think about, you know, reducing our
carbon footprint and, you know, having a degree of
responsibility in line with, you know, with clients we work
with.”

13. Ideas to promote walking to work
Restrict car parking
Can cause tension in the workplace but important factor in
how employees travel to work
Be seen to be ‘fair’
• Exceptions for disability, special circumstances
• Parking space in relation to need, not ‘status’
• Parking fees tiered by income
Use savings/revenue from reduced parking spaces to
support walking
• Subsidised public transport
• Subsidised walking shoes, wet weather clothing
• Free umbrellas or rucksacks
• Lockers, and improved cloakroom/ washing facilities

14. Ideas to promote walking to work
Flexible working hours
• enable employees to combine other responsibilities with the walk to
work e.g. the ‘school run’ or other family responsibilities
• adjust work patterns to fit with public transport e.g. train or bus
timetables
Provide information
• for existing staff and new applicants
• maps showing nearest bus stops and train stations
• distances, routes and times to the workplace (based on 20 minutes
per mile)
• up-to-date bus and train timetables

15. Ideas to promote walking to work
Mileage allowances
• Instigate a mileage allowance for those who walk (20p per mile?)
Facilities
• Provide storage lockers
• Improve cloakroom areas
Acknowledgement / incentives
• Provide free (workplace branded?) umbrellas, rucksacks, shoe bags
• Negotiate discount from local shops for walking shoes, raincoats
• Give financial assistance/subsidies for public transport
• Provide reflective clothing and strips
• If smokers are given short breaks to go outside allow time for
walkers to change at the start and the end of the working day

16. Useful websites
• www.walkit.com/walking-to-work - the urban walking route planner
• www.mylivingstreets.org.uk – information to help you create streets
you want to walk in
• www.walk4life.info – find a walk and track your progress
• www.nhs.uk/Livewell/loseweight/Pages/10000stepschallenge.aspx
• www.sustrans.org.uk – everything you need to know about healthy
active travel
• www.dft.gov.uk/think - the government’s road safety campaign
website
• http://www.walkingforhealth.org.uk/ - supporting you to get active
and stay active
• http://traveline.info/ - Sustainable travel advice