Plan for a disrupted journey or a delayed return home

Think about a journey that matters: getting home from work, collecting a child or visiting someone who needs help. If the usual route or service stopped, would you have another option, or would the better choice be to wait somewhere safe?

The Met Office encourages people to consider alternative plans before bad weather affects travel. Staying home or postponing a journey may be a better option than trying to make the normal routine work at any cost. The point of a fallback is to give you a choice.

1. Check the forecast, weather warnings and your transport operator's information. Allow for the return journey too; a service running now may not tell you what will be available later.
2. Consider an alternative that you could actually use. Check accessibility and whether the people travelling with you could manage it, rather than treating any line on a map as a workable route.
3. Keep the essential destination, contact and route information available without a live internet connection. A flat phone should not remove your only record of where you are going.
4. Agree who to contact if you are delayed. If someone depends on your arrival, discuss an alternative person or arrangement with them in advance.

Choose travel essentials for the journey and the people making it. Ready Scotland suggests practical items such as a charged phone, weather-appropriate clothing, water and food when preparing for disruption. If you use medicines or an accessibility aid, include the things you normally need to manage your day.

Keep the load realistic. A bag that you cannot carry or reach is not useful. Car travel, a bus journey and a walk need different arrangements; you don't need to carry a vehicle kit everywhere you go.

For bad weather, check current official advice before starting. A bag of supplies is not a reason to travel when the advice is to avoid a journey.

Choose a contact or meeting arrangement with the people involved. Think about the person without a smartphone, the child expecting collection or the carer waiting to hand over. Make the fallback understandable to them too.

Keep the important details on paper as well as in your phone. If contact fails, an agreed plan gives everyone something more useful than repeatedly trying the same unavailable service. The communications guide covers this in more detail.

Use the boxes while you read, or tick them on a printed copy. This site doesn't save your ticks.

• You have checked conditions and transport information, including the return.
• You know whether postponing or changing the journey is possible.
• Essential contacts and addresses are available without mobile data.
• The people depending on you understand the delay arrangements.
• What you carry fits the journey, weather and your own needs.