Led by: City of York Council
Contact: Daniel Johnson
Tel. +44 (0) 1904 551 328
email Daniel.Johnson@york.gov.uk

Introduction:
The project builds on the success of a Target 1 pilot scheme and progresses a regional approach to travel planning by rolling-out the Travel Plan model - TOPS (Travel Options Planning Service), developed by the South Yorkshire PTE.  It is expected that certain changes will occur as the model is rolled-out to the varying urban, rural and unitary districts of the Yorkshire and Humber Region.

A web-based resource for both regional and national organisations will also integrate the approach with the Regional Journey Planner and the National Traveline initiatives.  This workpackage involves the projects listed below which are being developed simultaneously:

• TOPS staff survey software
• Personalised journey planner
• Planning guidance 
• Travel plan award scheme
• Regional best practice exchange
• Web site resource
• Ticketing discounts
• Personality Test project
• Car share schemes

This workpackage is supported by Yorkshire Forward and the Regional Development Agency.

ACTIVITY UPDATES:- 

West Yorkshire Travel Plan Network Launch Event, May 2005
A successful event with over 40 delegates attending, was held at the Midland Hotel in Bradford to launch the Travel Plan Network for employers. To date 21 employers/sites have been awarded full membership of the network. The next event may be held in Leeds, but this is dependent on LCC recruitment for  a permanent Workplace Travel Plan Officer. Copies of the Travel Paln Network information pack have been circulated to managers in Metro.

The west Yorkshire travel for Work Partnership proposal has also achieved Stage 1 approval, with work underway with partners to develop the detailed business plan needed for Stage 2 and 3 approval.

West Yorkshire Travel Plan Network, May 2005
The West Yorkshire Travel Plan Network is designed to be the main mechanism for the local authorities and Metro to Provide travel plan support to employers across the whole of West Yorkshire.  Membership is free of charge, but certain criteria is required:-

• Willingness to participate in annual snapshot survey
• To agree an annual action plan.
• To share experiences and knowledge with others.

The network has a strong identity agreed by  all partners, and an information pack produced for use in all districts. The partners identified a range of services that can be provided  including:- access travel options, improved access for staff and customers, tranport requirements, public transport information, staff benefit initiatives, environmental management and potential time and cost savings.

Now that there are now over 100 employers engaged in Travel Planning within West yorkshire there is a general acceptance  that the process of providing assistance needs to be as streamlined as possible, consistant across the districts, focussed on employers who are at the peak of motivation, and can draw on ideas of employers as well as public sector providers.

 It was also felt important  the employers had access to the same services regardless of geography as some employers had more than one base of operations in the region. Information on all services is integrated and employers only have one single point of contact.

The agreements for service delivery underpinning the Network are quite complex and only time will tell how well they work in practice. There are still concerns as to whether there is sufficient staff time to realise the potential of workplace travel planning, to develop the services and to be more pro-active.

With the culmination of the Network travel Plan through Target,  a number of facters were dependent on the formation of the Travel Plan.

• Flexibility of delivery by partners.
• Development of sufficient of services to make an attractive offer to employers.
• Achievement of times savings
• The impetus to acheive a specified Target income.
• Trust between partners developed through joint working

With the end of the Target 2 project, and of the department for transport bursery funding, there is now less staff resourse to support the newly formed Travel Plan Network. It does not seem possible at this stage to operate the network on a sustainable economic basis and that further public funding will be needed.  Work is in hand on proposal funding via The West Yorkshire Sub-Regional Investment Plan. 

TravelWise Travel Survey, April 2005
The electronic travel survey and report generator has been completed. The survey has been set up to record how people travel to work.  The specially designed software is easy to use and automatically provides reports for employers, travel plan officers and planners.

The software was developed during Target 1 by SYPTE as a pilot and has now been adapted for West Yorkshire as part of the Target 2.

The principle behind the programme is that data is entered in to the TravelWise survey programme and saved to an MS access database, (created upon installation of the programme). This Database is then used to create a MS Word report summarizing the findings from the entered data, but based upon a standard Word template.

The programmes have been saved in such a way as to be able to run on a standalone PC or fully networked system.  There is also a manual available titled The Travel Survey Installation guide providing information of the survey and how it operates. The Travel report has been used by most workplaces in the annual travel survey 2005.

Travel plan support in West Yorkshire, November 2004
Metro are supporting businesses in West Yorkshire with their 'Company MetroCard' travel plan discounts.  The five Leeds Primary Care Tusts have been awarded the Company MetroCard travel plan discount.  This is great news for employees who benefit from the 15% discount available because the company, the PCTs  have formally developed their travel plan.  It is hoped that the discount will further stimulate progress.

Personalised Journey Planner, June 2004   Everything seems to be on track for the personal journey planner software to be available in September 2004.  It will allow batch processing of journey plans using a database of staff names/ID, home and workplace postcodes and time likely to arrive/leave work.  Some of the costs will be recouperated by charging the customer for the service.  City of York Council are expected to charge £1.50 for each journey plan and offer a free update service for a year, i.e. a new journey plan will be sent out automatically if the bus service or times are modified.

Other applications of the journey planner can be for schools (especially children starting at secondary school), letting agents and residential developments. 

Business in the Community Conference, May 2004 Representitives of Yorkshire and Humber Target 2 Workplaces package staffed a display stand at an environmental conference for major employers organised by 'Business in the Community', which was held at Hallem University, Sheffield.  Participating employers at the conference demonstrate their commitment to environmental management and benchmark their performance.

Exhibiting at the event, Target promoted a range of workplace travel plan assistance that is available across the region.  The conference identified that  companies make only slow progress with the issues of climate change and transport compared to other environmental activity.  Target is now concidering an approach to Business in the community, to raise awareness of the relevance of travel planning in this field.  See Related links: Business in the community

Site specific information, Spring 2004  Metro have developed a template for leaflets showing site specific information to complement company travel plans.  The guides give infomation on a range of travel options and travel plan measures including public transport.  Although quite labour intensive, the template helps to promote travel plans to companies and acts as an aid to employees.  To date three companies - First Direct, Leeds Metropolitan University and Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust - have completed guides. 
See Related Links: Site specific information

TOPS staff survey software, Spring 2004  During Target 1 South Yorkshire PTE developed a scanable standard staff survey with automatic report generation.  Through Target 2 an improved version is now available on CD-ROM, which means the service can be used more widely.  This software is being modified for use in West Yorkshire.

Hospital travel plan options, City of York.  March 2004.  The Travel Plan Officer in York has been working closly with the hospital trust to develop travel plan options.  In March this year they purchased 28 new cyclce lockers and there is now a waiting list of 30 staff wishing to use them.  The lockers were launched by Liz, the York Cycle Champion in 2003.

Personalised Journey Planner, March 2004   Following intense development work with the software provider, South Yorkshire and York have purchased the personalised journey planner software.  It is currently being tested and should be available in August 2004 and will then be rolled-out to the rest of the region.

Planning Guidance
'Travel Plan Guidence for Developers and Planning Applicants', March 2004
The draft document identifies when a travel plan is required, and outlines the structure, components, targets, implementation and reporting requirements.  The document will also supplement a series of developer guidance leaflets.

In the UK planning guidance is enforced by the local authorities.  It has been identified that changes in planning guidance is required in order to assit the greater implemention of workplace travel plans.  The Project Officer Helene Vergereau, is collacting regional and national supplementary planning guidance for travel plans, as well as developing York's  internal guidance.   

Regional Best Practice Exchange - Regional Travel Plan Officers Event
June 2003  A Travel Plan Officers leadership and team building event was organised by the Project Officer, Helene Vergereau.  York hosted the day's workshop to develop regional working relationships and encourage exchange of ideas.  Due to the size of the Yorkshire and Humber Region it is often difficult to liaise and exchange good practice between all the authorities involved.  Travel plan forum notes.pdf

West Yorkshire Health Service Seminar
October 2002  Travel Planning and the National Health Service
Target 2 recently supported a half-day seminar designed to bring together managers from elements of the National Health Service within the sub-region of West Yorkshire. The seminar was attended by over 40 representatives from Hospital Trusts, Primary

Care Trusts and Mental Health Trusts, local authorities and other agencies. The event was organised by the Workplace Travel Plan Officers of West Yorkshire and was hosted by Metro in Leeds.

All Health Trusts are required to develop travel plans by the National Health Service. The aim of the seminar was to provide them with information, ideas and encouragement to develop their own travel plans.  Equally important, the event was designed to help people from different organisations to meet each other and to maintain contact with each other in the future.

Topics covered included, transport and health in West Yorkshire, planning regimes, a managed hospital car parking system (case study from Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust) and developing the business case for healthcare travel plans.

Evaluation showed that the participants found the event very useful and requested another event organised in a year’s time. The West Yorkshire Travel Plan Officers created a newsletter Autumn 2002 for the event.

Web site resource
December 2003  South Yorkshire Travelwise announced the launch of their web site www.syTravelWise.net  A one-stop shop for everyone's transport and travel needs.  It provides comprehensive information for school, business and personal travel.  Illustrating travel plans, public transport, car sharing, walking, cycling and motoring advice throughout the South Yorkshire region.  The site is easy to use and documents information useful to any travel planner.  See Related Links

Ticketing Discounts
Summer 2003  A ticketing discout has now been secured within West Yorkshire on the MetroCard season ticket.  Detailed evaluation has led to greater understanding of the costs and benefits to all stakeholders that in turn helps with promotions.  Discounted ticketing is now being explored for cross-boundary journeys.

Personality Test Project
April 2004  See the start of the personality test project pioneered by City of York Council.  The project identifys where people are on the behavioural change 'ladder'  and their values are.  Armed with the behavioural theories information, marketing messages can be adapted to better target a particular audience and used to influence commuters' travel choices.  See Related Links: Behavioural change model.

Car Share Schemes
August 2003  Both City of York Council and Leeds City Council have secured car sharing schemes for employees.