Sustainable travel
Active travel refers to walking, wheeling and cycling, while sustainable travel refers to taking public transport such as buses, trains and trams. Our choice of travel method has an effect on ourselves and our wider community. The number of cars on our roads leads to air and noise pollution, increased carbon emissions, and increased stress levels from sitting in congestion. By choosing active or sustainable travel methods, this will have a positive environmental impact; whilst also benefitting both physical and mental health and wellbeing, not just for the individual but for the wider community too.
What we’re doing
We have developed a plan aimed at supporting our community to undertake active and/or sustainable travel for at least part of their journey to or from LJMU. The LJMU Active and Sustainable Travel Plan is a reflection of our key role in the Liverpool City Region of advocating for and supporting the delivery of a more sustainable travel infrastructure to enable a cleaner and healthier city.
The Active and Sustainable Delivery Plan includes targeted actions to 2030 across the following themes:
- Active travel.
- Public transport.
- Business travel.
- Fleet vehicles.
- Private vehicles and car parking.
Through the delivery of actions within the plan, we hope to make active and sustainable travel the first choice for our staff and students to provide health and wellbeing benefits for our LJMU community as well as the wider city region.
View our Active and Sustainable Travel Plan (PDF, 5.3MB)
Plan Your Journey
Plan your journey ahead of time using the CityMapper app, this will show you different active and public transport options, the time each would take, and the cost associated with each option.
Cycling in Liverpool
Whether cycling to and from campus as part of your commute or just for enjoyment at weekends, we want to make cycling easier for you. We have a cycle to work scheme for staff which can be accessed through Vivup, and there are a number of cycle parking and shower facilities on campus which you can find using our interactive map.
We regularly hold Dr Bike sessions to help give your bike a quick check-up, and in the upcoming year have a busy schedule of Dr Bike sessions, Bike Maintenance classes, Learn to Ride classes and Led Rides. You can view our upcoming events on our Sustainability engagement and events webpage.
Public transport
Taking public transport to commute to and from campus can be a great alternative to driving for longer journeys. We provide annual season ticket travel loans for staff through Vivup to help save money and spread the cost throughout the year.
Emissions from travel
Scope 3 emissions for LJMU account for 90.1% of our total carbon emissions, with 26.8% of our total carbon emissions associated with travel. This includes daily commutes, business and field trip travel, and student travel at the start and end of term.
We conducted our Travel Survey in spring 2024 for staff and students to find out more about how our community travels to and from LJMU which helps us to calculate our scope 3 carbon emissions. Our travel survey also sought to understand barriers to active and sustainable travel methods, which we used to update our Active and Sustainable Travel Plan over the past academic year.
In the long-term we want to better understand how we can reduce scope 3 emissions associated with our travel activities, prioritising more sustainable travel methods where practical to do so, with offsetting as a last resort.