Step 3: Surveying the Current Situation
To ensure that the measures you choose to encourage more sustainable transport will work, first you must establish a clear picture of how people and materials travel at present and what facilities already exist. Doing so will also allow you to gauge the success of your Travel Plan in future.
Conducting a site assessment
A site assessment will provide an overview of transport links serving your site and on-site transport facilities. It should tell you how easy it is for staff, visitors and suppliers to access your site by various means.
You may also use this as an opportunity to determine staff opinions on the barriers that prevent them from walking, cycling, car sharing or using public transport.
The following should be considered:
- The number, condition, signage and directness of cycling and walking routes from residential areas, bus stops, rail stations and car parks.
- The level of storage facilities for cycles, showers and lockers.
- The level of existing public transport services and facilities at your site(s), and associated timetable information and ticket costs.
- The number, location and land value of car parks.
Help in conducting a site assessment
(Please note: all links below are to external sites)
Strathclyde Partnership for Transport have produced a downloadable site audit and travel survey templates.
Your local transport operators will be able to help with queries regarding service routes, ticket costs and frequencies.
Living Streets can provide you with a specialist audit of walking facilities at your site.
Cycling Scotland operate a Cycle Friendly Employer Award scheme, the award resource pack for which contains much useful guidance on site assessments for cycling.
Sustrans Scotland can provide maps detailing links to the National Cycle Network.
Surveying staff travel patterns
A questionnaire-based survey will establish a baseline of the ways in which people currently travel - the 'modal split'. This will then used to monitor the success of the Travel Plan.
Your questionnaire should be based on the information gained from your site assessment and audit. Consider also what information you want to get from your survey.
The core set of questions should cover:
- the starting point for their journey (best captured by postcode)
- the way they travel to and from work (car, bus, cycle etc)
- the different stages in their trip to work
- working patterns and place of work
- age, gender and disability
Tips for conducting a staff travel survey
Be aware that the phrasing of questions can yield different answers - e.g. "How did you travel to work today?" versus "How do you regularly travel to work?"
Keep the questionnaire as short as possible.
Be sure to avoid ambiguity and unnecessary jargon.
Give assurances that you will maintain confidentiality.
Include a named contact for queries - e.g. that of the Travel Plan Coordinator.
Test the questionnaire with a pilot group first to highlight any shortcomings.
Consider the suitability of different distribution methods - e.g. printed or online.
Make the questionnaire as easy to complete as possible.
Consider a covering letter from senior management.
In order to promote the survey, consider a prize draw for respondents.
Give a clear deadline for responses.
You might also want to send out reminders.
Analysing the survey results
You should be able to carry out some basic analysis yourself in-house, such as the percentage travelling to work by car or bike.
More complex analysis can include cross-referencing responses by age, gender, department, or journey start point by postcode. However, you may consider getting a specialist company to analyse your data.
You may also consider postcode mapping. By mapping respondents that are, for example, willing to try using the bus or to share their car, a map can be constructed that can help you determine the demand for new routes, or indicate potential matches for car sharing. Staff home postcodes should be available from your Human Resources department.
Acknowledging existing policies
To develop your Travel Plan, you will need to understand the general conditions of employment for your organisation.
There may already be, for example:
- existing policies regarding travel to and from work
- rules for business travel
- initiatives that help cut car usage (e.g. allowing home working)
- incentives that encourage car usage (e.g. business mileage allowances)
- relocation packages to encourage staff to live closer to work or to public transport links
You should also take account of any travel advice given to visitors.
Sustrans has produced guidance on creating active travel directions:
Auditing non-commuter travel
There are a number of additional audits that you may wish to carry out, depending on the size and type of your organisation and the scope of your Travel Plan:
Business travel audit
Business travel should be audited separately if you are addressing this kind of travel in your Travel Plan.
This type of audit involves recording and reviewing all business travel to establish if it is being undertaken in an efficient and environmentally friendly manner or whether it is even necessary at all. You may find that the information you need is already available and will simply need to be re-organised to be compatible with Travel Plan development.
Visitor audit (including customers, deliveries and suppliers)
This type of audit will identify the numbers coming to your site and the modes of travel they are currently using. It should also identify whether there are ways to encourage them to use more environmentally friendly modes.
You'll need co-operation from visitors to do this, as you will need to ask them a few simple questions when they arrive. If visitors make up a major element of your organisation's travel, you may want to consider undertaking a more comprehensive survey.
Fleet vehicles audit
Include all the vehicles owned or leased by your organisation such as company cars, vans, lorries and both short and long-term hire vehicles. This audit will generate a lot of information that can be used to review whether vehicles are being used efficiently.
You'll also be able to see whether you should increase or reduce your fleet, how to make best use of hired vehicles. You will also discover whether some trips could be made by other modes, or whether trips could be amalgamated or made shorter. The audit may also recommend providing eco-driving tips to regular drivers.
The Energy Saving Trust offers free 'Green Fleet Reviews', providing advice on lowering running costs, reducing environmental impact and enhancing corporate social responsibility. Operators of small fleets (less than twenty vehicles) can access a free telephone fleet consultancy service.
Find out more about Green Fleet Reviews »
Existing information audit
Many organisations will already have maps in brochures or online information that only highlights driving directions to and from their premises.
Review and assess the information that currently exists and make sure to incorporate information on access by all modes.
Sustrans has produced guidance on creating active travel directions:
NEXT: Step 4: Defining Objectives »
