Each day during semester time, around 40,000 students and staff travel to and around The University of Auckland and AUT University city campuses, an area known as the Learning Quarter. This daily journey puts significant pressure on roads and passenger transport systems, and can mean congestion and delayed journey times for students, staff and other commuters.

With this in mind, the Auckland Regional Transport Authority, together with The University of Auckland, AUT University, Auckland City Council and Transit New Zealand, produced the Universities’ Travel Plan. This 10-year programme aims to increase travel choices and make travel to and around the Learning Quarter easier.

The key parties involved in the plan carried out a comprehensive research programme that involved the collection and analysis of information from around 6,500 people. This makes it the largest travel behaviour research programme so far undertaken in New Zealand.

The research indicates that university students and staff are generally already high users of sustainable transport (walking, cycling and using passenger transport), setting an example to the rest of the CBD’s commuters. Students are particularly flexible in their current travel behaviour. While both students and staff are more likely to drive the longer they are at university, they expressed a strong willingness to consider other travel options.

Based on these findings, a number of recommendations were developed and consulted on by university staff and students. The feedback from the consultation phase was then used to finalise the Universities’ Travel Plan, which was officially launched on 11 September 2007 at the Auckland City Art Gallery. The event was hosted by representatives of the Universities’ Travel Plan Steering Group.

We'd like to thank the students, staff and transport professionals that took part in our interviews, surveys and workshops and made this plan possible.

More information
You can find out more about the Universities’ Travel Plan by downloading the following:

 The Universities' Travel Plan - A summary of the project and actions
 The UTP Research Report - A report on research and project development