Big City Employers Sign Up To Traffic Easing Plan
SOME of the biggest companies in Southampton are putting their weight behind a major new initiative to slash traffic jams on the city’s streets.
Ikea, cruise giant Carnival and Solent University are signing up to the scheme, which aims to transform employees’ commuting habits.
Together the three employ more than 4,000 people in the city, and they are to be the test subjects in a pilot of a free workplace travel planning service to encourage the use of sustainable transport like buses and car sharing.
The scheme, which could soon be rolled out to employers across the city, is the brainchild of the Transport Alliance, a lobbying group made up of businesses and the City Council formed last year to tackle transport problems.
Studies suggests such plans can have significant benefits for employers such as a reduced business travel bill, lower staff expenses, alleviation of parking pressures and fleet management. Travel Plans also thought to have a positive impact on employee health, reduce absenteeism and cut a company’s carbon emissions.
Gary Whittle, chairman of the Transport Alliance said: “The need for a travel planning service was highlighted by many businesses across the city region. The Transport Alliance took this message to local government and lobbied for support and funding to offer organisations a free work place travel planning service. As a result, Southampton City Council and the Transport Alliance will carry out a pilot exercise with several businesses over the second half of 2010.”
Frank Baxter, travel and transport policy manager at Southampton City Council added: “Travel plans are known to achieve significant cost savings to organisations through making transport work more efficiently and effectively.
“The typical business case achieves a 10:1 return on initial investment. In these times of budget cuts finding efficiencies in operations is vital to staying competitive and keeping costs down.
“They also have environmental benefits and are often ways of increasing the choice of transport for staff thereby widening the labour pool for business.”
By Gareth Lewis, Business Editor "Hampshire Business"
Visit: Hampshire Business
July 28, 2010
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“The Workplace Travel Plan Company have helped us complete our Travel Plan for the Local Authority and now manage our Travel Plan Steering Group to enable us to achieve our targets.”
Debbie McCormack
Head of Operations, Muckle LLP