TfL Travel for Life
What is it?
TfL Travel for Life is an accreditation programme supporting the next generation of Londoners to travel towards a brighter, safer and more sustainable future. It is designed to inspire young Londoners to travel actively, responsibly and safely.
Schools and education settings across London work with LA officers and can be awarded a gold, silver or bronze accreditation based on the number of completed activities.
Why do it?
- participation embeds active travel (walking and wheeling) and road safety within a school community, providing a wealth of resources to inspire and structure engagement
- reduced traffic congestion, improved air quality and safer roads are benefits, as well as reduced childhood obesity, improved punctuality and a widely-acknowledged increased capacity for learning among pupils due to an active school journey
- since the start of the programme in 2007, TfL estimates that schools have replaced 22 million kilometres of car journeys with active travel
- in 2022, the number of children killed or seriously injured on London's roads was reduced by 63% against TfL's 2005-09 baseline.
Other benefits
- accreditation unlocks services such as Bikeability and road safety training and grants and rewards from Ealing Council and TfL
- provides evidence for Ofsted of promoting and achieving active travel
- counts towards Healthy Schools Silver and Gold awards
Get on board
All schools and education providers have a TfL Travel for Life account.
The site is a portal to activity plans. Progress can also be monitored as you upload activities. You will need a staff member to be the school travel champion and a team of pupils to devise and deliver activities.
Nursery children are discoverers, primary are explorers and secondary are pioneers. Here is our guide to recruiting explorers embassadors.
What we do
The school travel team works with TfL but is independent.
We support engaged schools with workshops and one-to-one surgeries and review activities uploaded to TfL Travel for Life.
Workshop details are in our calendar and our half-termly newsletter. We also plan and implement the borough-wide School Street programme.
Contact the team at sta@ealing.gov.uk or 020 8825 9648 for more information.
TfL Travel for Life resources
TfL Travel for Life website has a wealth of resources to inspire and structure your journey through the accreditation process. The school travel team offer workshops throughout the year on how to use the website, and successfully record your progress.
TfL has also created a series of videos detailing how to make use of the TfL Travel for Life website. These are currently on Vimeo, but will also be made available on YouTube.
Travel for Life booster guides
Listed below are guides to some key events and campaigns. These are likely to become available in Travel for Life’s Knowledge Base section also.
Each guide lists a range of activities and how to go about them. Once completed, these can be uploaded and will count towards your accreditation status. It’s possible to do extra activities during events, which will also count towards accreditation.
Please note TfL Travel for Life is a new website and some of the links may not work yet.
School streets
Walking and wheeling
- STARS and Big Walk and Wheel
- STARS and bike week
- STARS and cycle to work day
- STARS and national walking month
- STARS and walk to school week
- STARS and walk to work day
Climate change
- STARS and eco schools
- STARs and clean air day
- STARS and London climate action week
- STARS and world environment day
Additional resources
