TRAVEL MANAGEMENT
emissions are to be published to the staff intranet on a quarterly basis and reported through the Council’s main committees.
Staff travel and accommodation which is currently booked within departments, is to be consolidated into one central booking desk which will manage bookings for all staff. It is intended that this will standardise booking procedures, make use of the reduced rates offered through national travel contracts and ensure compliance with the Council’s business travel hierarchy.
To support behavioural change, 12 green travel web pages have been developed on the Highland Council web site to ensure staff and the public can access information on sustainable travel. The pages include information on why travel needs to be more sustainable, using video and telephone conferencing, producing travel plans and increasing active travel. Video and telephone conferencing is encouraged and their usage at Council sites is monitored. In 2009/10, £30,000 in costs were avoided and 26 tonnes of CO2 were saved by staff using video conferencing equipment instead of travelling to meetings.
Video and telephone conferencing training was recently webcast to all Highland Council computers and is available as an archived web cast on the staff intranet. This has attracted over 500 viewings to date and it is intended that this training will further increase video and telephone conference usage.
The Council has approached community planning partners in Highland to propose that video conferencing facilities be shared at no cost. In this way, if an organisation’s video facilities are not available, another partner’s
Sep/Oct 10
equipment can be used, therefore reducing travel emissions and costs.
Vehicle contracts are being altered so that cars leased or hired to the Council will not be over a specific fuel efficiency rating limit. Employees are also instructed to request the most fuel efficient car available in the category they require and the most appropriate size of car for their business purpose.
Funding from the Energy Saving Trust has been secured to develop travel reports for fifteen Highland Council sites. These reports detail a wide range of best practice recommendations for developing guidance, policy, actions and training on green travel planning at the sites. As a result of the plans, cycle storage and lockers have been installed at Council sites, sustainable travel information has been disseminated to staff, bus stops, timetables and signage have been improved and car parks have been more effectively managed.
To balance the tighter
management of business travel, staff active travel incentives have been reviewed. The popular Bike to Work scheme which enables staff to purchase a bike at a reduced rate, has been run three times with 1,380 new bikes purchased.
The Council cycle rate of 12 pence per mile will be raised to the HMRC recommended rate of 20 pence per mile through the harmonisation of terms and conditions process.
The Council’s headquarters in Inverness has been awarded a Cycle Friendly Employer Award by Cycling Scotland. The award is in recognition of the Council’s efforts to enable staff to cycle to work and meetings. A grant has also been awarded to purchase personal lockers for staff who travel actively to work and for
business. The Council also supports the national campaign “Change Your World” which is run annually to encourage employees to travel to work by a sustainable mode on a particular week. A series of active travel masterplans have been developed for each of the main settlements within Highland. The purpose is to help establish a network for walking and cycling and access to public transport.
The masterplans will identify a core active travel network in each location which will form part of the Local Plan and serve as a framework for future development proposals.
The Council also promotes and encourages green travel for the public sector and businesses in Highland. Continued work is undertaken with HiTrans, the statutory body for public transport including: funding applications for active travel infrastructure and the development of bike storage at bus stops and at train stations.
To support the promotion of green travel throughout the business, a Highland councillor has accepted the role of green travel champion. Councillor Angela MacLean says “Reducing business travel has been very high on the Council’s agenda in the two years for three main reasons: to reduce CO2 emissions, to reduce costs and to better use our staff and councillors’ time.
It’s very encouraging to know that we have reduced travel budgets by £900,000 and CO2 emissions by 9% putting the Council well on target to achieve 12% reductions in CO2 emissions from travel by 2012.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
For further information check the Highland Council websites:
www.highland.gov.uk/travelhierarchy www.highland.gov.uk/greentravel
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