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Workplace travel plans
Capital and Coast District Health Board: its workplace travel plan
Contents
4. Key factors in realising a successful plan
5. Looking ahead: promoting the long-term benefits
1. Overview
Capital and Coast District Health Board (C&C DHB) is the leading provider of specialist health services to people in the Wellington region. With more than 3500 fulltime staff located over four key sites, it is the largest employer in the region.
Capital and Coast District Health Board operates Wellington Hospital, Kenepuru Community Hospital, Kapiti Health Centre and Ratonga Rua o Porirua. As well as its staff, it has large numbers of patients and visitors accessing its hospitals and clinics every day.
With all this activity, Capital and Coast District Health Board is a major contributor to traffic flows in the region. In 2005, it faced a major redevelopment of Wellington Hospital and the need to provide better public transport access to Kenepuru Community Hospital. It started to look at ways to reduce the need for private car journeys to its sites, and reduce pressure on a limited number of car parks.
A solution was found in developing and implementing a travel plan. The staff travel plan was completed in April 2006, and a plan for patient and visitor travel is in preparation. These plans identify a range of actions aimed at reducing reliance on private cars.
As a healthcare provider, C&C DHB has led by example and is the first district health board in New Zealand to embark on workplace travel planning.
2. Developing the plan
A complex project
How do you develop a travel plan for more than 3500 fulltime staff working in several sites across the Wellington region, and also
for large and diverse numbers of patients and visitors to the C&C DHB’s various sites?
In 2004, a scoping study to determine the feasibility of a plan and outline the issues was undertaken by a consultant, funded through the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA). Following the study, a travel planner was appointed and a steering group set up in May 2005 to coordinate the project.
‘It’s been a large, complex project involving staff with diverse work schedules, working from different sites and in different departments,’ says travel planner Jan Simmons. ‘Developing the plan has been a real group effort but an essential part of my role was to establish and maintain lines of communication within the organisation.’
The steering group, made up of representatives from C&C DHB, Greater Wellington Regional Council and ECCA, met regularly and guided the development of the travel plan.
Aims
The overarching aim of the project is to reduce reliance on the use of private cars for all trips to C&C DHB’s sites. This
means providing and promoting safe and sustainable travel choices to the sites for staff, patients and visitors.
Partnerships
The C&C DHB travel plan was developed in partnership with Greater Wellington Regional Council, the Energy Efficiency
and Conservation Authority and Land Transport NZ. Wellington City Council, Porirua City Council, Kapiti District
Council, Cycle Aware Wellington, Living Streets Aotearoa, Hutt Valley District Health Board and various community organisations are
involved in the implementation.
Funding to develop and implement the plan was provided by Greater Wellington and by Land Transport NZ’s National Land Transport Programme.
The process
Because of the size and complexity of the project, the plan was developed in two phases. These were:
- ways to reduce the number of staff trips made by car
- ways to improve access and travel choice for patients and visitors.
‘The first thing I did when I took up the job was to start developing a project plan with action points and timelines,’ Jan says. ‘At the same time, we also started to carry out background research and plan a travel survey of staff. We looked at the travel plans of other organisations to help us develop a best practice model.’
Armed with the project plan, Jan and the steering group prepared a report and made a presentation to C&C DHB management.
‘It was really important to keep management informed about the plan,’ Jan says. ‘The presentation assured them that we were following best practice methodology and keeping up with what international organisations were doing in travel planning.’
Phase one: Developing the staff travel plan involved three key stages. These were:
- information gathering, including extensive consultation with staff and external stakeholders, and research on issues such as local transport infrastructure. This stage also included designing the staff travel survey and doing accessibility audits of C&C DHB sites.
- identification of potential measures, based on the gathered information. The survey findings helped Jan identify the issues that mattered most to staff and what issues were particular to each site.
- the development of an action plan, involving ongoing consultation and discussion to ensure the proposed actions were feasible.
Phase two: The patient and visitor travel plan has followed a similar process but with less emphasis on ‘active travel’ messages and more attention to addressing the difficulties faced by some sectors of the community when they make trips to hospital. Patients and visitors often don’t have access to a car. Research has highlighted the need for direct, fast, affordable public transport services that can be used easily by people with mobility impairments.
3. Implementing the plan
Meeting different needs
With the Wellmoves C&C DHB Staff Travel Plan completed in April 2006, the next step is implementing a range of recommended actions.
These are focused on encouraging a shift from car use to more walking and cycling, and use of public transport and carpooling.
The travel planner is leading these actions with support from the steering group and relevant stakeholders. ‘Staff have such different needs and there’s a whole lot of things you can do to encourage people to leave their cars at home. However, there’s no one set of actions that will suit everyone.’
What’s been achieved?
More than 50% of Wellington Hospital’s staff live within five kilometres of work and many could use a direct bus route. The key
target for the staff travel plan is a 10% reduction in single-occupant car trips by 2010.
Actions implemented by early 2007 include:
- staff provided with public transport personal journey plans on request
- an intranet site for staff, including information about local travel (ride-share, public transport, walking, cycling)
- public transport information for patients and visitors provided on the C&C DHB website
- a cycle users group set up, safe cycling workshops and improved cycle parking
- a staff ride-share scheme
- promotion of walking, with regular lunchtime walks at Wellington Hospital and an annual eight-week Walking Challenge event.
- A Wellmoves newsletter that keeps everyone updated on travel plan news and events.
4. Key factors in realising a successful plan
Spreading the word
Ongoing communication, says Jan, is the key to an effective travel plan. As the only travel planner for 3500 staff, she looks for ways
of keeping the ‘active travel for health’ message visible to everyone in the organisation.
‘In the early stages we needed to introduce staff to the whole approach of travel planning,’ Jan says. ‘Taking a personal approach with all 3500 staff simply wasn’t possible, and so I attended as many team leader meetings as I could.
‘Getting to talk at these meetings was really valuable and team leaders were incredibly supportive of what we were doing. They
took our messages back to their teams and it proved a great way to spread the word.
‘Now that we’re into the implementation phase, we’re making more use of other communication tools such as articles in staff
e-newsletters, organisation-wide emails, fliers on noticeboards, and items about our activities in community newspapers. But we can’t
rely on electronic communication: less than half our staff use email or intranet regularly at work.
‘Initially, we had a slow response rate for our online travel survey. I extended the survey period by a week and went around talking
to people and leaving printed survey forms in lunch rooms. That proved the value of the personal approach.
‘Figuring out the best communication channels in an organisation is incredibly important. No two organisations are the same and you can’t rely on assumptions.’
A perfect fit
Other factors ensuring the successful development and implementation of the C&C DHB travel plan include:
- the commitment of senior management
- building and maintaining strong relationships with external and internal stakeholders
- ongoing consultation with staff so that they had ownership and saw that their needs were being addressed
- a strong brand for the plan. A ‘Wellmoves’ logo with the words ‘Capital and Coast District Health Board - Promoting Active Travel for Health’ was developed and used in all travel plan communications.
‘Promoting the importance of a healthy lifestyle in the community is a key role of Capital & Coast,’ Jan says. ‘The travel plan is a perfect fit with its vision statement of “Better health and independence for people, families and communities”.’
5. Looking ahead: promoting the long-term benefits
It’s early days in the implementation of the plan. However, repeat surveys of staff travel will be conducted in 2007 and in 2010 to measure progress towards achieving its target of a 10% reduction in single-occupant car trips by 2010. Progress towards implementing the key actions in the plan will also be monitored.
In implementing the plan, C&C DHB anticipates that it will result in:
- direct savings through reduced business travel and parking management costs
- improved staff morale, health and productivity
- improved accessibility of its sites
- enhanced profile as an employer and the opportunity to lead by example in promoting the health benefits of active travel
- a reputation for innovation and leadership in the health sector.
Jan says it’s important to keep people enthused about using sustainable transport modes. One of the ways to do this to promote the long-term health benefits of walking, cycling and public transport.
‘We organise regular lunchtime walks for staff. The 2006 Walking Challenge event included prizes for people who did the most walking to and from work,’ Jan says. ‘We also put together a large staff team to take part in the seven-kilometre Vector Wellington Round the Bays walk in February.’
In 2007, Greater Wellington and local councils will be assisting more workplaces, schools and universities to introduce travel plans.
‘As time goes on, this will result in a better community-wide understanding of the whole concept of travel planning, and more people changing their behaviour and choosing sustainable transport options,’ Jan says. ‘This wider understanding will really help us in our efforts to implement the actions outlined in our two travel plans.’
Page created: 13 August 2007