Our Business Commuter Toolkit is set of practical tools and advice to support you understand the travel options available to your site, and what you can do as an organisation to encourage sustainable travel throughout the workforce.
These resources are recommended for small and medium sized businesses with around 50 employees or more.
It is recommended that they are completed in the order listed - Place, People, Plan - so that any surveys are rooted in the most viable travel options.
1. Place
Identify and analyse the travel opportunities near to your business site to help your understanding of what travel options are available. This will enable you to develop plans for increasing sustainable ways of travelling that are achievable.
-
Use the Bee Network app and Google Maps to identify nearby features, such as roads, site access points, public transport, cycle paths and car parks:
- Consider locations that are a short distance from the site (e.g. up to a 30-minute walk or a 15- minute cycle), such as transport hubs and stops.
-
Consider the safety features of the travel opportunities identified:
- Is there street lighting on pedestrian and cycling routes?
- Are footpaths and cycle lanes in a desirable condition?
-
Consider features already provided at your business site, such as car parking, EV charging, cycle parking, showers and lockers.
2. People
Now you know what’s available at your location, survey your employees to understand their current travel practices, any opportunities and challenges, and how obstacles could be overcome.
Staff travel survey
We have a staff travel survey template that can be amended to suit your organisation.
- See the staff travel survey template.
- Tailor it to suit how your organisation operates, and what infrastructure and resources you have available, for example, remove any incentives that would not be practical.
- Promote this survey amongst your employees.
- Analyse your feedback.
3. Plan
Now that you have understood the travel opportunities near to your site, and you have surveyed your employees, you can now recommend sustainable travel initiatives and future policies that work for your business.
Reviewing your company policies, schemes and incentives can identify opportunities to support a sustainable culture and encourage behaviour change. We have complied a list of ideas to help you review your offer.
It is also worth thinking about how you will communicate your policies, initiatives and schemes with employees.
- A good starting place is mapping which communication channels you have (e.g. staff emails, internal newsletters, social media profiles, team meetings) and how these can be used to discuss and promote sustainable travel.
- You may also want to be more targeted in your communications too. For example, if you have a list of staff who currently hold parking permits, you may want to target these staff members with information and incentives to encourage sustainable commuting.
If you follow the three steps above – Place, People, Plan – we hope this will give you some ideas for how you might encourage and enable your staff to travel to, from and for work more sustainably.