Welcome to Active Travel Innovations 2026
Active Travel Innovations 2026 is focused on one key question: How do we actually deliver the third Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy?
The third Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS3), published in June 2026, sets out a clear plan to make active travel a practical choice for millions more journeys.
It shifts the conversation from building individual schemes to delivering a national system.
The strategy marks a new cross-government approach to active travel, bringing together transport, health and investment while giving local leaders a greater role in shaping delivery to meet the needs of their communities.
It also outlines the wider benefits of active travel to the UK economy, setting out how investment in active travel can save households money, improve public health, cut congestion, reduce carbon emissions and support local economies.
Join us at Active Travel Innovations 2026, in the host city of Bradford - winner of the 2026 Active Travel Infrastructure Award – for presentations, city walking and cycling tours, case studies and workshops that showcase how innovation, sustained investment and political leadership can reshape your city and region.
Why now?
CWIS3 aims to complement the Better Connected integrated transport plan and the UK Road Safety Strategy, both released earlier this year by Government.
The Government wants to see 5.3 million more people being physically active through active travel, including inactive people, 2.2 billion more short walking stages in towns and cities, and 600 million more short cycling stages in towns and cities.
CWIS3 is underpinned by three objectives:
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Enable more people, particularly the least active, to benefit from physical activity through active travel
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Make active travel the easy and integrated choice
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Improve safety for people walking, wheeling and cycling
The strategy means that every mayoral strategic authority (MSA) and large local authority will have a “funded, phased active travel network plan aligned to growth, housing and health commitments, with connected urban networks in delivery”.
Worth Every Step...
Alongside CWIS3, Active Travel England (ATE) published its 4-year roadmap, Worth Every Step, which sets out ATE’s strategic priorities for 2026 to 2030 and explains how ATE will support CWIS3.
Too many of our streets do not yet make daily active travel journeys feel safe, easy or inviting, according to ATE.
Worth Every Step aims to change that, starting with delivering more active school runs and a high-quality, national network made up of local routes to high streets, workplaces and transport hubs.
National Active Travel Commissioner, Chris Boardman said: "Every journey made on foot, wheeling or cycling, delivers value - to the person making it, to the community around them and to the economy. It keeps money in our pockets, makes us healthier and happier and boosts our local economy. "Yet too many of our streets do not yet make those journeys feel safe, easy or inviting."
"Our Worth Every Step delivery plan will change that. It’s time to make the cheapest and healthiest way to travel, the easiest way to travel.
"When streets work for people, everything else follows."
"Increasing physical activity plays a key role in improving health. The greatest health gain from physical activity comes from those who do none starting to do some, and those who do some increasing their level of activity.
"Walking, wheeling and cycling are great ways to incorporate physical activity to everyday life, across the life course - to encourage this we must make routes practical, safe and equitable.
"Active Travel England’s work is important in delivering this, and it is encouraging to see this set out in Worth Every Step."
Professor Chris Whitty, UK Chief Medical Officer
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