Scotland’s Railway has launched a new strategy designed to develop easy, convenient, and safe sustainable travel options to and from the country’s railways stations.

The vision of the Sustainable Travel to Stations strategy is to grow the number of journeys passengers make by healthy and sustainable modes of transport, including public, shared, and on-demand transport, and active travel such as walking, wheeling, and cycling.

The strategy is a practical guide for everyone interested in growing passenger numbers, delivering integrated transport, and creating a healthy, connected net zero economy.

Central to the strategy is integrating stations into the communities they serve, and the guide offers a range of recommendations to ensure integration, collaboration, and appropriate design are embedded into station travel plans and projects.

Community rail is directly referenced in the strategy (p.33) as an essential stakeholder in helping to deliver integrated and accessible railway stations.

The strategy’s mission to enable and support modal shift away from car use aligns clearly with Scotland’s National Transport Strategy (NTS2) and its emphasis on the sustainable travel hierarchy.

In March, Scotland’s network of community rail partnerships, supported by Community Rail Network and Paths for All, used the 2023 Rail Scotland Conference to launch their ‘Let’s go for 1 in 5’ campaign, encouraging people to ditch the car for one in five journeys when they can, in support of Transport Scotland’s commitment to cutting car use by 20% by 2030.