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TRAVEL PLANS: AN OVERVIEW

THE BENEFITS

An effective Travel Plan can significantly reduce the costs of car park provision and maintenance, or employee business mileage. Travel Plans can also produce indirect but significant benefits, such as improving the punctuality of employees. Organisations which have a Travel Plan will appear more responsible, caring and business-orientated to staff, customers, suppliers and in the local community. Indeed, the less immediately quantifiable aspects of a Travel Plan can have an influence on other aspects of business strategy such as:

• shareholder value - assisting with the promotion of a strong company image; or
• reducing human resource costs - being an employer of choice can have benefits in the recruitment and retention of staff.

HEALTH BENEFITS

Congestion damages business and the environment. It costs time and money; it causes stress and exacerbates wear and tear on the road network. These are costs that Scottish businesses and the wider economy can ill afford. It is a fact, in heavy traffic your lungs absorb more pollution sitting in a car than if you were walking or cycling.

Queues of stationary or very slow-moving traffic increase emissions leading to localised areas of unacceptable air quality, which affect the health of people living nearby as well as those using busy roads. Local effects of air pollution include eye irritation, headaches and breathing related illnesses such as asthma and bronchitis.

Cycling or walking to work is a great way of getting fit and healthy. Regular physical activity has been shown to have important benefits for health. Those who are active on a regular basis can decrease their risk of developing heart disease, angina, and strokes and maintain good mental health. As well as protecting against heart disease, regular activity can also prevent high blood pressure, non-insulin dependant diabetes, osteoporosis and can help people to control their weight and cope with stress.

HOW DO YOU ENSURE SUCCESS

The key to a successful Travel Plan is to identify which transport alternatives staff and visitors will be prepared to use. You should try to make these measures more attractive to them than driving alone. There is no single solution to answer all your organisation's transport needs/problems - different people will respond to different measures, some may not react to any. A combination of measures should therefore be used to let people 'pick and mix' according to what suits their own day to day requirements and lifestyle.

Experience suggests that you should try to get incentives, such as discounted or subsidised public transport, in place first to get people more supportive of your travel plan and to encourage a change in behaviour. You can then put any disincentives, such as car park charging or reducing parking spaces in place later.

INSURANCE AND LIABILITY ISSUES

The insurance and liability issues surrounding most elements of a Travel Plan are not major, but aspects such as car-sharing and tele-working should be borne in mind from your organisation's point of view, and should be brought to your staff's attention in order that they might check their personal insurance.

KEYS TO SUCCESS

A 'good' Travel Plan will:

• Have senior management support.
• Be based on current travel patterns - you will need to carry out a site assessment/Staff Travel Survey/audits to identify current travel behaviour and to find out what would encourage people to reconsider their travel options.
• Have clear objectives - the objectives must provide focus and direction. Think about linking them with environmental initiatives and explain the benefits for the individual, the organisation, the environment and the community.
• Include a comprehensive package of measures ('carrots' and 'sticks') - introduce incentives first but disincentives are likely to be needed to bring about change. Not everyone's travel behaviour is the same so you will need to ensure that a range of measures are provided to appeal to as many people as possible.
• Have staff time allocated - a co-ordinator should be appointed to drive the plan forward.
• Have staff involvement - all employees should be involved and staff/visitors with particular mobility needs should be recognised.
• Include marketing - both of the plan itself and of specific measures.
• Set clear targets - with specific dates for their achievement.
• Establish monitoring procedures - identify who will be responsible for monitoring, when the monitoring will occur and how the results will be disseminated and fed into the review process.

WHAT ARE THE STAFFING IMPLICATIONS?

To develop and implement your Travel Plan it is recommended that you have a Travel Plan Co-ordinator. This individual plays a key role in travel plan development and implementation. They are responsible for the day-to-day running of the Travel Plan, providing the overall co-ordination needed to ensure the Travel Plans success.

You should consider setting up a Steering Group. This group will oversee the development of the Travel Plan and provide guidance and high-level support.

Depending on the size of your organisation, you may wish to set up a number of Working Groups. These groups provide the means for enabling employee participation and regular liaison with staff. A general 'consultation group' could be set up, in addition to 'mode groups' which can take forward the more detailed aspects of the Travel Plan.

SET TARGETS, WITH SPECIFIC DATES FOR THEIR ACHIEVEMENT

INVOLVEMENT OF OTHER ORGANISATIONS

YOUR LOCAL AUTHORITY

Your local authority is likely to be fully supportive of your Travel Plan. Local authorities may offer specific assistance to organisations developing Travel Plans, for example:

• Advice may be offered on specific measures, for instance cycle parking. For off-site infrastructure changes e.g. improved cycle routes, you will certainly need to liaise with your local authority to identify the opportunities that exist.
• Scottish local authorities are now members of the National TravelWise association. For further information, advice and support contact your authority's TravelWise co-ordinator.
• Provision of timetable/bus route information and contact details for bus operators serving your site.
• Assistance in liaising with operators to encourage changes in routes which would benefit both your organisation and the bus operators.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT OPERATORS

You will want to involve local bus operators to discuss service improvements, service changes, information provision, ticketing etc.

WHAT THE GOVERNMENT IS DOING

The Transport Delivery Report "Scotland's Transport: Delivering Improvements" published in March 2002 sets out the Scottish Executive's transport vision for Scotland. It describes in detail the transport improvements that have been and will be delivered in the short term with committed funds. The vision directly addresses the challenge of tackling congestion in and around Scotland's major metropolitan areas. In the main, this will be achieved by modernising, improving and promoting public transport and encouraging more walking and cycling. A key step to success in respect of this policy will be encouraging more sustainable forms of transport to and from work and reducing the amount of single occupancy car commuter traffic on the roads. The development of an increasing number of Travel Plans across the country will help us to meet our goal as well as benefiting those organisations who implement them.

Some of the measures which can be introduced as part of a Travel Plan may be viewed as 'benefits-in-kind' to staff.

However, there are a number of measures that you might think about implementing as part of your Travel Plan which are exempt from tax. For example, employees receiving free or discounted travel on buses subsidised by their employers will not pay tax on it as a benefit in-kind

Other measures include the provision of works buses and loans for the purchase of travel season tickets, bicycles and cycling safety equipment. Details of the tax implications of Travel Plan policy and benefits are included in the DTLR publication 'A Travel Plan Resource Pack for Employers'.

TRAVELINE

Traveline is a telephone enquiry service providing timetable and journey planning information. Through a single telephone number - 0870 608 2608 - travellers can be provided with route and timetable information for all types of public transport throughout Great Britain.

WHAT CAN I DO NOW?

You've already taken the first step by reading this booklet and appreciating the benefits that a Travel Plan can bring to your organisation.

The second step is to realise that developing a Travel Plan is not something that your organisation will have to face on its own. This conference has shown that Travel Plans are already being developed across Scotland by a wide variety of organisations all with one thing in common - a growing demand for workplace car parking.

Most Local Authorities in Scotland are now promoting Travel Planning - both with larger employers and with schools. Some are already asking for Travel Plans as conditions of Planning Consent and most are very willing to offer support and guidance at the development and implementation stages.

14 Scottish Local Authorities are now actively involved with the National TravelWise Association. TravelWise promotes more sustainable transport and recognises Travel Planning as a very effective tool in bringing about the required change in travel behaviour.

For information on where to get more advice or support on Travel Planning, you should contact your Local Authority (normally the Transportation or Planning Department) or alternatively, you can contact one of the National TravelWise representatives:

Dave Kinnaird, Fife Council (01592 413107;dave.kinnaird@fife.gov.uk), or
Paul Ince, East Lothian Council (01620-827661;pince@eastlothian.gov.uk).

MORE INFORMATION

There is a lot of useful information available about Travel Planning and sustainable travel options. We've listed a number of good sources - apologies if any have inadvertently been overlooked:

The Scottish Executive www.learntoletgo.org.uk
National TravelWise Association www.travelwise.org.uk
CBI www.cbi.org.uk
Association for Commuter Transport www.act-uk.com
SUSTRANS www.sustrans.co.uk
Environmental Transport Association www.eta.co.uk
Telework, Telecottage & Telecentre Assoc. www.tca.org.uk
Forum for the Future (HEPS) www.forumforthefuture.org.uk
Traveline Scotland (PT Information) 0870-6082608

PUBLICATIONS

• A Travel Plan Resource Pack for Employers (2000)
• Developing an Effective Travel Plan: Advice for Government Departments (2000)
• The Benefits of Green Transport Plans (1998)
• The Benefits of Green Transport Plans: A Summary to the Guide (1998)
• Guide to Green Transport Plans: Advice for Government Departments (1997)
• Green Transport Plans: The Costs and Benefits to Employers - Executive Summary
• The Benefits of Green Transport Plans: A Literature Review

Please contact the Energy and Environment Helpline on 0870 122 6234 for further details.

TRY TO ENCOURAGE MORE WALKING AND CYCLING

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