Success Stories

Plymouth

Derriford Hospital

The Derriford Travel Plan is nationally acclaimed. It allows the hospital to operate efficiently and has increased accessibility to Derriford, for patients, staff and visitors. The Travel Plan continues to deliver significant modal shift away from single occupancy car journeys and save the Trust money through reduced car park maintenance costs.

Improved Bus Services
What has been particularly successful with the Travel Plan is bus travel to and from the site. Within Plymouth Derriford Hospital is the second busiest public transport interchange. The large number of bus services to the hospital has been achieved through negotiations between the Hospital Trust, bus operators and City Council and is largely attributable to the Travel Plan which encourages and facilitates staff, visitors and patients to travel by bus. The Trust organises quarterly Bus User Group meetings providing an opportunity for staff and visitors to speak directly to bus operators and Plymouth City Council officers thereby allowing public transport provision to be amended to accommodate, where possible, the changing needs of the hospital.

Extended Park and Ride
The dynamic nature of the Travel Plan can best be demonstrated through the current work of the Trust and Plymouth City Council which will lead to the extension of the George Junction Park and Ride. This project will provide 250 dedicated car parking spaces at the high quality Public Transport interchange, enabling staff to use the First Devon and Cornwall Service 7 directly from the Park and Ride to hospital. This facility will help all staff living in the north of Plymouth to access Derriford, in turn enabling the growth of Derriford to continue.

Eastern Corridor

The Cattedown Enterprise Centre consists of 40 units intended for starter companies. Their travel plan should be launched by the end of the year. To support the plan information screens will be put up in the lobby of the unit displaying information about the travel plan. Car parking spaces are being set aside for people who are registered with car share Devon and these people will not need to pay to park. However, the remaining spaces (and supply does not meet demand) will be pay and display with the funds from the car parking likely to be hypothecated to support the provision of other sustainable travel modes.

Northern Corridor

The Northern Corridor Travel Plan forum
The Northern Corridor Travel Plan forum is now in existence with local businesses meeting every 6 months to share best practice regarding travel plans and inform the City Council of issues which are hampering modal shift. Such issues can then be addressed to the benefit the success of Travel Plans.

Land Registry (Seaton Court)
The Land Registry at Seaton Court have an active Travel Plan and a dedicated intranet site with information on car sharing, public transport, trains and planes where staff can access information travel modes. The Land Registry monitor car park usage and cycling on a daily basis and organised ‘Bike Week’ events which enthused staff about cycling.

City Centre

Western Mortgage Services
Western Mortgage Services approached Plymouth City Council wishing to develop a ‘voluntary’ Travel Plan. They have put in lockers and cycle hoops and have developed a Travel Plan leaflet for their staff. WMS have joined the Green Travel Pass scheme with 25% of their staff hoping to travel by bus.

Devon

Both the Met Office and EDF Energy have received national awards and Sowton Industrial Estate has the only business-led transport management organisation in the UK.

Met Office

This example clearly demonstrates where ‘locking in the benefits’ of travel plans with a comprehensive package of measures can maximise the opportunities of sustainable travel. The travel plan was required as part of the Section 106 obligations. The travel plan was incorporated into the staff relocation programme in 2003. This approach helped staff make decisions about journeys to work as part of choosing where they would like to live. Working in partnership with DCC and Exeter City Council; a comprehensive package of sustainable transport measures became an ‘award winning’ travel plan. (The Met Office won the Association of Commuter Transport Award in March 2003).

	Hard Measures	Soft Measures
Public Transport	Expanded bus interchange at the Honiton Park and Ride service frequency every 12 mins	Honiton Road and Sandygate roundabout - traffic flows through the use of web cams, allow staff access to current traffic situations to make informed decisions about which transport mode they would like to take
	A bus service with access to the site (H1), linking the site with the St David’s and Central Stations as well as City Centre	Negotiated bus ticket discounts made available through pay roll
	New Infrastructure, e.g. well lit attractively designed bus shelters, cycle racks	Well lit and maintained cycle routes in and around the site
	Proposed improvements to pedestrian and cycle facilities at Pinhoe and Digby. Met Office have provided financial contribution to this	Travel bureau in the entrance area, staff can purchase season tickets, book rail tickets, obtain timetable information, and check real time information
Car Sharing		Priority parking for car sharers, free emergency ride home, plus other car related incentives, free valet for minimising car use
Information dissemination		Public transport information made available through Metnet (company intranet)
		Consultation with staff
		Information on transport options in different areas to help influence home buying decisions
		Encourage car sharing via Intrinsica Technology, shared facility with EDF Energy
Cycling	New cycle route between Honiton Road and Hill Barton Road	Bicycle Users Group
	Improvements to cycle routes between Honiton Road and Sowton Industrial Estate	150 covered secure cycle spaces close to main building; 22 showers, large capacity lockers
		Clear signposting of cycle routes in and around the sites, cycling facilities also clearly labelled
		Discounts on cycles and accessories negotiated with local suppliers
		Provision of pool bicycles
		‘Bike buddy’ scheme to help less confident cyclists identify safe routes

Table 2: examples of some of the measures the Met Office used in their Travel Plan

The development of the Met Office’s green travel plan (STEP) as part of the relocation process has proved very successful in attracting more staff to use car sharing (33%) and the bus (7%) to get to work, i.e. these figures are approximately double what they were in Bracknell. The Met Office Travel Plan Officer calculates that on average there are 100 & 165 daily unused parking spaces. Cycling has had a huge increase in the last year at the Met Office, this is likely to be to the proactive role of the BUG at the Met office. The BUG has a high profile presence in the Met Office and regularly organise bike rides and events to encourage staff to cycle.

EDF Energy

In November 2003 EDF Energy relocated to a brand new and state of the art office in Sowton. The Section 106 required that a travel plan was produced for the site. So to go with its innovative building it has an innovative travel plan. The travel plan embraces a series of initiatives aimed at reducing car travel and improving more environmentally friendly transport options. Devon County Council control the peak flows of traffic into the site by a restrictive number of 280 car maximum allowed in the car park between 8-9am. If the figure is exceeded then EDF are subjected to a penalty fine by DCC at £8 a vehicle. To date EDF have never gone over 190 cars during this peak time. EDF’s management strongly believe that they would fail their obligation to deliver a successful travel plan if they did!

The EDF travel plan package includes:

• A full time travel plan co-ordinator
• Annual discounted loan arranged with stagecoach to allow staff to travel by bus.
• Discount at local nursery to allow parents to car share, flexible approach to working patterns to allow people to car share
• Staff forums, presentations at team meetings, publicity - intranet, posters, notice board announcements, email reminders.
• Senior management presentations to staff. Email contact box - for e.g. issues resolution, car share requests.
• Promotion of car sharing software in conjunction with the Met Office.
• Showers, lockers, secure bicycle shed.
• Clear signposting of cycle routes in and around the sites, cycling facilities also clearly labelled. Discounts on cycles and accessories negotiated with local suppliers.
• Provision of pool bicycles
• Criteria based parking allocation, weighted on travel distance, availability of other transport options, working patterns and home dependencies. Guaranteed car parking spaces for car sharers. 45% of car spaces allocated for car shares, and 50% of people in car share partnerships.
• Improvements to cycle routes
• New cycle paths
• Bus stop directly outside offices
• Improvements to cycle routes between Honiton Road and Sowton Industrial Estate
• Planning agreement limited parking to 399. Threshold of 280 cars into car park between 8-9 with a penalty of £8 payable to DCC if they exceed the threshold.