Active Travel worth £36.5 billion to UK economy in 2021 – Cycle Industry News
Mark Sutton 20 October 2022
Sustrans’ Walking and Cycling index has demonstrated the ongoing economic benefits of active travel to the UK economy, calculating walking, wheeling and cycling to be worth £36.5 billion.
The Walking and Cycling Index is the largest survey of active travel, undertaken across 18 urban areas in the UK and Ireland. The latest assessment of 17 of those areas tallies the benefit to the UK economy to be £6.5 billion in those places alone and extrapolates the findings to reach the larger nationwide estimate.
The positive externalities judged are things such as bringing down the cost of traffic congestion and running a car, improved health and reduced burden on the NHS, and fewer sick days at work. Physically active people take 27% fewer sick days each year than their colleagues, it was found.
