Ebbsfleet is being planned and built at a time of considerable change in the way people travel. New technologies, concerns over air quality and the environment, increasing intensification and urbanisation in northern Kent, changes to the way we work, where we work and how we shop, and the rising cost of travel are all impacting our decisions around how we make short and longer journeys, and changing our collective behaviours…

The following section provides a brief overview of the current context in Ebbsfleet, reviewing current travel behaviours, emerging technologies, and their potential impact.

It should be noted that while reviewing current behaviours and statistics is useful, these behaviours are predicated on the existing transport systems, levels of congestion, ticketing and pricing, all of which are likely to change significantly as Ebbsfleet grows.

People in the Ebbsfleet area have tended to commute more by car, and less by walking, cycling and public transport than similar locations on the periphery of London.

The area is currently characterised as a collection of small towns and villages with reasonable access to London, but suffering from challenging local connections. The creation of the Fastrack bus service has improved this connectivity, but many people within the Ebbsfleet area live over 15 minutes walk from a Fastrack service, and generally perceive it as being more expensive and unreliable than taking the car.

Walking and cycling connections are limited by the challenging topography of the former quarries, and the barriers created by the roads and railways that criss-cross the area, all of which leads to most people choosing to use their car to make most journeys.

Even when compared to the more rural area of wider Kent, the level of walking and cycling is still low, when considered against the level of connectivity, density, and proximity to central London.

This also reflects the distributed nature of local employment areas in Dartford, which are not generally focused in town centres, but are dispersed throughout office parks and industrial hubs across north Kent and the wider southeast. In 2011 the area also had significantly less people working at home than in Kent or indeed England.

However it should be noted that this data is based on the 2011 census, and does not represent the travel behaviours of newly arrived residents within Ebbsfleet. The travel trends and emerging data reviewed in this strategy suggest that car ownership and usage models are changing and are likely to continue to change. Engagement with residents in the new developments suggests more home working, more people commuting to central London than neighbouring settlements, and thus significantly less car-based commuter trips amongst new residents in the area.