By Car Is Not The Only Way - Work Travel Plans

A couple of years ago I went to a conference on sustainable transport. As I arrived I saw a guy who had come by train and bike asking a conference site manager where he could put his bike, and then having a bit of a dispute over the fact that there were no bike storage facilities. Slightly ironic I think.

Anyway, that incident did inspire me when I was writing our own location details on how to find us on our website recently.

Why assume that everyone is going to come by car? They are more likely to come by car if you assume that they will come by car. If you give them directions on how to reach you by walking, bus, bike or train or any other ways, then they are more likely to use those ways, because they might not have thought of using those ways until you suggested it.

So, for our location directions we give info on how to get to us by bus, train, bike and train, and finally, at the bottom, how to reach us by car with a mention of car-sharing if you can.

Nowadays many organisations (like us) have a work travel plan which gives ideas of how to reduce the amount of car travel by employees and visitors. There are lots of things that organisations can do to reduce car travel, and it doesn’t even have to cost them anything. Having directions on an organisation’s website which don’t make the assumption that everyone will come by car is a really good way to increase our culture of sustainable travel and even help the organisation financially by reducing demand for car parking spaces.

Some people might say what is the point in putting information about where our bike storage facilities are or how to get from the local station to our offices by bike or whether the local train line will accept bikes on its route. They might think
no one cycles anywa so the info is pointless, but you have to look at it the other way. If people see the information, they might think, oh yes, I'll cycle instead, so then more people start to cycle or walk or take the train instead of all turning up in their droves to fill up the car park.