Active Travel: The benefits of walking, wheeling and cycling
As this week is National Walk to School week, the Academy9 team wanted to take the opportunity to highlight some of the benefits of Active Travel to inspire you to get active!
Meet Rachel
Rachel Schulberg is a Transport Planner working on the A9 Dualling project. As a Transport Planner, Rachel has supported local authorities, assisting a broad range of projects, including travel planning, active travel, public transport feasibility, and behaviour change campaigns across Scotland and Ireland.
Rachel has a wide variety of experience working on active travel infrastructure development projects in rural, suburban and urban settings. This gives her a good understanding of relevant standards, but also of the delivery challenges that many active travel schemes face. Rachel also has a key interest in design safety, particularly women and girl’s safety and safety around schools.
Rachel recently worked on a Zebra Crossing Research Project on behalf of Transport Scotland and the Scottish Roads Research Board. The aim of this research is to understand the needs of users who are most at risk, and their attitude to, and experience of zebra crossings. We hope that this research will help identify potential improvements to the design of zebra crossings or their surroundings, primarily around increasing perceptions of safety for most at risk users.
What is Active Travel?
Active travel involves using your body to make the journey. It includes walking, cycling, skateboarding, and even scootering! Unlike sitting in a car or bus, active travel keeps us moving and helps us stay fit and healthy. It is also an important part of leading a healthier lifestyle and can also help to reduce carbon emissions in transport systems in towns and cities.
Overall Benefits of Active Travel:
There are all sorts of benefits to active travel such as;
- Healthy bodies: Regular physical activity helps us build stronger muscles and bones, maintain a healthy weight and reduce the risk of illnesses.
- Happy Minds: Exercise releases chemicals in our brains that make us feel happier and more relaxed.
- Environmentally friendly: Walking or cycling reduces pollution and helps protect our planet.
- Better sleep: Being active helps us sleep better at night.
Walking and wheeling benefits:
Walking or wheeling; can be easy ways to stay healthy and even easier to fit into your everyday and it’s something that many of us can do safely. Walking costs nothing, and wheeling provides more opportunity to get out and about. If you can, you could try walking or wheeling to the shops or to your after-school activities instead of travelling by car, doing walks or wheels with a friend, or getting off public transport a stop early.
You can walk or wheel almost anywhere, and you’ll see benefits including:
- Finding new places – by exploring your local area, you might find shortcuts, new sights and sounds or maybe even a new favourite walk or wheel through nature.
- Improved health benefits – just 30 minutes of walking a day can increase your heart and lung fitness, while reducing risk of chronic and cardiovascular disease.
- Improved fitness – walking is a low impact exercise, good for your joints and even better at improving muscles.
- Better for the environment – if you choose to walk or wheel just one mile a week instead of driving, you’ll save 30kg of carbon dioxide a year, which are gases that contribute to global warming.
Walking has been proven to improve your health and happiness too. Walking regularly can reduce the risk of heart disease by 35%, while active travel helps manage stress (NHS,2025).
*** wheeling includes wheeled mobilities such as manual self- or assistant-propelled wheelchairs, including wheelchairs with power attachments and mobility scooters.
Cycling benefits:
Cycling is one the quickest and healthiest forms of active travel for many people. People around the UK are already seeing positive health benefits, with local governments supporting cyclists with plans to convert roads into cycle super-highways. Cycling tips for children and families can help you play your part in protecting the planet through active travel.
As you can imagine, there are many benefits to picking up a pair of wheels – whether that’s a regular bicycle, an electric bike or an adapted cycle, which aren’t just about reducing carbon emissions. Remember to always wear a helmet!
Benefits that come from cycling include:
- It can be faster than public transport in built-up areas, saving time as you filter safely through the traffic. You can cycle up to five miles in 25 minutes (depending on route and fitness levels).
- It can be a great step towards a healthier lifestyle, building muscle, and improving your heart and lung capacity.
- It’s a great way to discover new places.
- All you need to start out with is a bike and helmet if you are riding during the day, making it a relatively affordable way to get around.
- It’s much cheaper than using a car or public transport – after the initial cost of the bike and occasional maintenance, it’s free!
Walk to School Week in Scotland 2025
May is an exciting month for all school kids in Scotland! Walk to School Week is a special event held in Scotland every year to encourage students to walk to school. This year, Walk to School Week will take place from May 19th to May 23rd, 2025, and is a fantastic opportunity to kickstart your journey into active travel. Living Streets work directly with 20 local authorities in Scotland delivering WOW- “our walk to school challenge to walk to school.” WOW encourages pupils to walk, wheel, cycle, scoot or ‘park and stride’ to school.
This year’s challenge will see pupils take on The Great Space Walk, pushing pupils to travel actively to school every day of the week. Here are the challenges for each day!
Day 1: We will learn how walking or wheeling is a great way to clear our heads and lift our spirits, arriving to school happy, refreshed and ready to learn.
Day 2: We will learn how great walking to school is for our bodies and the impact movement van have on our physical health.
Day 3: We will learn about the importance of sustainability and the impact walking to school can have on the planet.
Day 4: We will learn how walking to school helps reduce the number of cars on the road making our streets less busy and safer for everyone.
Day 5: We will learn how walking to school gives us an opportunity to get to know our surroundings, the people who live around us, and the important role we all play as part of our communities.
A9 and Active travel
Dualling the A9 between Perth and Inverness will strengthen the connection between the Highlands and Scotland’s Central Belt for communities and businesses bringing vital benefits for all road users, including bus services, through safer roads, improved journey time reliability and reduced driver frustration. It will also provide enhanced active travel routes for walkers, cyclists and horse riders.
Stay tuned for Part 2 covering ‘School Streets’ and ‘Safer Routes to School’ discussing roads around your local school, and ways to make them safer and less congested.
