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 them to travel actively, responsibly and safely. Schools and education settings across London work with borough officers and can be awarded a gold, silver or bronze accreditation based on the number of completed activities.
All schools and education providers have a TfL Travel for Life account. The portal has a wealth of activities to inspire and organise engagement. The site’s bars of progress also offer a visual tool for users to monitor their progress from bronze to gold status.
Why do it?
Participation embeds active travel (walking and wheeling) and road safety within a school community, by providing resources called activity cards to give ideas and organise engagement.
Road Safety Week, the Big Walk and Wheel, school trips using public transport and Giant Walking Buses are just some of the events and campaigns detailed on the site. Climate change and air quality are also explored.
Taking part offers potential physical and mental wellbeing benefits for your cohort such as reduced childhood obesity, improved punctuality and a widely-acknowledged increased capacity for learning among pupils due to an active school journey. Environmental benefits include reduced traffic congestion, improved air quality and safer roads.
Since the start of the programme in 2007, TfL estimates that schools have replaced 22 million kilometres of car journeys with active travel. It also states the number of children killed or seriously injured on London's roads has been substantially reduced.
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
You will need a staff member to be the School Travel Champion.
They could be your PSHE lead, work on your Healthy School status, or be any staff member with an interest, and enthusiasm for active and sustainable travel. They will need to recruit a team of pupils to deliver activities, and also create their own.
Nursery children are Discoverers, Primary are Explorers and Secondary are Pioneers. See our guide to recruiting explorers embassadors.
Case studies
We have assembled a set of case studies demonstrating how schools have stood out in their engagement with TfL Travel for Life. Best newcomer, creativity and student achievement are among the categories of successful participation in the collection.
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.
Guidance is also available from TfL. A set of YouTube videos has been created covering all the basics.
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 clean air day
- STARS and eco schools
- STARS and London climate action week
- STARS and world environment day
Additional resources
