Colchester2020 Travel Plan Update July 2007
Colchester2020 Travel Plan Update – February 2008
Colchester2020 Travel Plan Club Terms of Reference.
The Terms of Reference document for the Travel Plan Club was finalised in December 2007, along with the strapline ‘Travel Choices – Healthy Futures’ and an overall vision for the club:
By 2020, Colchester’s Travel Plan Club will be hailed as a leader in promoting sustainable travel choices. People will think before they travel and choose from the range of travel options available to benefit from improved health, reduced congestion, financial savings, a better environment and a reduction in their carbon footprint.
Since then work has commenced towards achieving the objectives the club has set itself.
Growing the membership of the Travel Plan Club
Colchester Institute joined the travel plan club in December 2007 and is proving an interesting and active member of the club. They are leading the way in encouraging car sharing by putting aside over 60 bays that can only be used by people arriving at work with more than one person in the car, this is being rigorously enforced. They have two car sharing coffee mornings planned to provide more information on car sharing and further encourage staff to join the scheme.
Colchester2020’s action plan which sets out how they are going to achieve their priorities has now been finalised. The Transport commitment targets for the Travel Plan Club include:
expanding the membership of the club to:
o 10 by the end of 2008
o 15 by the end of 2009
o 20 by the end of 2010
The current membership stands at seven. The Travel Plan Club Coordinator (TPCC) is in discussions with ABRO about joining the club and has put forward various proposals for how to incentivise small organisations to voluntarily form a travel plan and join the club.
The Travel Plan Club and marketing
Marketing the Travel Plan Club
There is now a Travel Plan section on the Colchester2020 website, which includes information about what the club does, the terms of reference and the current membership. There is also a section that will be used to report news and Travel Plan club activities.
The intention is to ensure that a press release is issued each month about Travel Plan Club activities to contribute to raising the club’s profile.
Marketing sustainable Travel Choices to Travel Plan Club members.
The Travel Plan Club has developed a marketing plan, the plan is live and subject to ongoing development as and when new opportunities arise to work in partnership with other groups and the public transport operators. The marketing areas currently being worked on are:
· The first of a quarterly Travel Plan Club newsletter
· A poster campaign to promote car sharing along with joint publicity in the media via the 2020 Business sub group and a revamping of the wording on the TravelTogether website
· Development of Bike Week plans focusing on raising sponsorship for Re-Cycle to ship bikes to specific projects in Africa. To support people wanting to take part, Dr Bike checks, training taster sessions and hopefully repair discounts with retailers will be offered in the months leading up to Bike Week.
· Meeting with the bus operators to discuss opportunities for joint marketing and new ticketing deals for Travel Plan Club members particularly on daily tickets.
Establishing base line data on which to measure future progress
The Travel Plan Club has started discussing a generic travel survey to be used across all members to collect data annually. This will allow us to all measure year on year progress within each organisation and across the Travel Plan Club. This will help demonstrate the progress the Travel Plan Club is making and attract new members.
New incentives progress update
Bike2Work scheme
Colchester Borough Council (CBC) is launching the Bike2Work scheme on the 25th February. Essex Rivers Healthcare NHS Trust will be launching theirs soon after, as will, we hope the University. TPSC may be interested to note that CBC will be changing its parking policy for those participating in the scheme, so that staff can only apply for a maximum of two drive in days a week.
5% discount on trains
Essex County Council is piloting the 5% train discount and Essex Rivers are due to launch the scheme shortly. However in the meantime discussions have resumed with ‘one’ about how this non match funded discount could be increased, as the culture within ‘one’ is changing, and they are beginning to become more open to working with employers on promoting sustainable transport through Travel Plans.
Green Travel2Work
There is now another tax relief scheme set up in a similar way to the Bike2Work scheme for getting an annual bus season pass through salary sacrifice. The TPCC will be looking into this as it is a way of providing discounted travel without the organisation having to contribute. Obviously this may not be of interest to the University given the deal First offers, however it may be of interest to other Travel Plan members and the possibility of combining a discounted product in addition to the salary sacrifice will be explored. Unfortunately this type of scheme cannot be applied to train travel.
Colchester to become one of the next Cycling Demonstration Towns
The government has now announced the funding for an additional ten cycling demonstration towns and we now await Cycling England to start the bidding process. Following the presentation in October 2007 to key stakeholders by Colchester Cycling Campaign (CCC) (including presentations by Emily Harrup and Jo Leyland), a proposal was put forward by CCC to Essex County Council (ECC) and CBC (again with significant input from the Travel Plan Club) as to why Colchester should put a bid forward and suggestions for its focus. To supplement this Jo Leyland and Emily Harrup prepared a proposal on behalf of the Travel Plan Club outlining a project plan for the bid. Both ECC and CBC subsequently confirmed their support for a Colchester bid and armed with these two documents, have prepared a scoping paper and have committed to providing resources for actually producing the bid.
The proposal put forward by CCC and the Travel Plan Club was for the focus to be on three main areas revolving around Colchester North Station, Colchester Town Station and The Hythe.
· Regeneration/accessibility: Improving accessibility for the regeneration areas, providing a safe and sustainable way of travelling which will improve health and encourage less car reliance, contributing to making the phenomenal growth of Colchester more sustainable.
· Integration/railway: Providing an alternative mode of transport to the car for a complete journey through combining cycling with rail journeys. To be achieved through provision of facilities either at stations or on trains and through improvements to the cycle network within the town to access end destinations quickly and safely. In addition, integrating cycling with other forms of public transport such as buses and Rapid Transport Links. This will reduce road congestion, improve health and facilitate social inclusion for non-car owners.
· Health and cycle to work/school: Encouraging cycling as a normal part of every day life for children and adults and as a cost effective way for local authorities and public health providers to tackle a range of health problems such as mental health, heart problems and obesity. To be achieved through a combination of employer incentives, training and education, improvements to on-site facilities such as bicycle access and parking, and improvements to access routes. This will generally increase well-being and quality of life in Colchester both in the medium and longer term.
ECC are communicating with Network Rail and ‘one’ to elicit their support for the proposals as this will be essential if rail and cycle integration are to be central to the bid.
On a separate but related subject, CBC are on a Station Travel Plan steering group run by the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) which is looking into piloting Travel Plans at a number of stations across the country. CBC will be putting Colchester North forward as a potential pilot once formal notification for expressions of interest is received. A proposal will have to be submitted by the end of March. This will really complement the aspirations for the demonstration town bid and vice versa.
Telematics
At last improvements in the provision of real time information via the telematic screens are evident. This is in part due to ongoing lobbying by the Travel Plan Club, Colchester Bus Users Group and Colchester2020 Transport group but is also due to a new level of commitment from First and Network Colchester (now Arriva) to get the system up and running. Most screens now show at least two or more buses running on real time information. There is still a lot of work to be done, but it is positive that an improvement is at last being seen.
Quality Bus Partnerships (QBP’s)
QBP’s are voluntary partnerships entered into by bus operators with local authorities. Each local authority sets its own standards.
In Colchester, QBP’s are already in place on routes:
· 64 – Greenstead to St Michaels/Layer-de-la-Haye via town centre (First)
· 65 – Highwoods to Stanway via town centre (First)
· 66 – West Bergholt to Rowhedge via town centre (First)
· 1 – Shrub End to Greenstead via town centre (Network Colchester)
· 4 – Stanway (Tollgate) to Colchester (Hedingham)
· 88 – Halstead to Colchester (Hedingham)
QBP’s in Colchester include commitments from the bus operators to set standards on the QBP route, including improvements such as providing 100% low floor buses, branded routes and customer service training for drivers.
Essex County Council for their part offer raised curbs, passenger information including telematic real time information, sheltered bus stops, bus priority and infrastructure to support bus reliability along the QBP route. These joint commitments are also aimed at improving reliability and journey times overall.
First have reported in the past that current barriers to committing to more QBP routes is guaranteeing the availability of low floor buses. However given the strengthening relationship between the University and First, and First’s interest in further developing the services serving the university, it is an ideal time to raise the issue of routes 61 and 62 becoming QBP routes.
Future of the Travel Plan Club
The TPCC’s contract expires on the 31st March 2008 and Andrew Budd’s support role also expires on the 9th March 2008. The TPCC has put forward a proposal to the Travel Plan Club members, that in order for the large workload the Travel Plan Club has set itself to be achieved, and to ensure that club members continue to receive the support detailed in the Terms of Reference document, that a full time post needs to be restored. It is proposed that is via a formal job share between Emily Harrup and Andrew Budd.
Proposals for standardising club members fees have also been made, which includes an annual £5000 contribution from all organisations with over 1000 staff (and students where applicable – therefore this means the University’s contribution would remain the same) The proposal also recommends that Travel Plan Club members commit funding for three years so that the TPCC job share post is secured to at least the end of 2010 in line with the targets set by Colchester2020 for growing the club’s membership.
Transport Policy Sub Committee is requested to note and endorse the actions being taken by the Travel Plan Club and the human resource and financial proposals put forward for supporting the Travel Plan Club over the next three years.
Emily Harrup
Colchester2020 Travel Plan Coordinator
November 2007