Evolving the Narrative with Modeshift: A Journey Through Data and Change
The 2025 National Modeshift Convention focuses on evolving the narrative – reaching wider audiences, building stronger relationships, and inspiring real behaviour change to make walking, wheeling, riding, and public transport the easy, everyday choice.
As a long-term partner, ‘You. Smart. Thing.’ (YST) continues to support this mission, helping delegates plan smarter, smoother, and more sustainable journeys to the Convention each year.
Embedded directly into the event website, Modeshift Travel Assistant, powered by YST, gives every delegate a simple, personalised travel plan with real-time updates and low-carbon options. Each deployment generates live data through the YST Client Dashboard, turning travel behaviour into insight that drives real change.
(Data from the YST Dashboard showing number of travel plan queries, 2022)
Theme: Planning, Policy, Delivery, and Inclusivity
2022 – Leicester: Establishing the Baseline
2022 marked the first full deployment of the travel assistant at the Modeshift Convention, the starting point for a new data-driven approach to sustainable travel.
The YST Dashboard recorded total travel plan queries, visitor origins, travel plans by mode, and carbon impact, giving Modeshift its first clear picture of how delegates actually travelled.
While most journeys still combined car and public transport, this initial dataset set the foundation for understanding how accessibility, communication, and engagement could evolve in future years.
For the first time, Modeshift could see sustainable travel in motion: real data, real journeys, real impact.
Theme: Evolutionary and Revolutionary Approaches to Sustainable Travel
2023 – York: Growing Reach and Shifting Modes
(Data from the YST Dashboard showing the modal split and rise in public transport use in 2023.)
(Data from the YST Dashboard showing wider regional reach and delegate origins in 2023.)
Guess what…
Compared with 2022, more delegates planned journeys using public transport, showing how clear communication and seamless tools can inspire meaningful behaviour change.
At York Racecourse, data from the YST Dashboard showed a strong rise in engagement. Travel plan queries increased, and the visitor map lit up across more regions, reflecting Modeshift’s growing national influence. The modal split revealed a gradual shift away from private car use toward rail, bus, and walking, with estimated carbon emissions per journey decreasing year on year. This demonstrated that when people are given simple, trustworthy information – they choose better.
Theme: Making Sustainable Travel Journeys Easier
2024 – Leeds: Making Sustainable Journeys Easier
In 2024, returning to Leeds, the Travel Assistant focused on usability and simplicity. Although total travel plan numbers dipped slightly, the quality of engagement improved, with a consistent share of public transport, walking, and shared travel.
The carbon data showed a continued reduction in average emissions per journey, reinforcing that ease of use and familiarity can be just as powerful as growth in scale.
For Modeshift and its partners, the YST Dashboard provided a clear view of progress, showing how digital tools can simplify sustainable travel at scale.
(Data from the YST Dashboard showing travel plans by carbon, 2023.)
Theme: Evolving the Narrative
2025 – Leeds: Shaping the Future of Everyday Travel
This year’s Modeshift Travel Assistant builds on everything we’ve learned so far, helping delegates plan connected journeys that bring together rail, walking, cycling, taxi, and more options, all in one place.
It’s about making travel planning effortless – combining accessibility, sustainability, and smarter technology to reflect how people really move.
Each plan not only helps delegates get to Leeds more easily but also adds to a growing dataset that reveals how travel behaviour is evolving.
In the spirit of this year’s “Evolving the Narrative” theme, we’ve taken a step back to explore what that evolution looks like – tracing how the travel assistant has changed, and what its data tells us about the journey towards more sustainable, accessible events.
