Travelwest Sustainable Travel Awards Guidance Notes
Thanks for your interest in submitting a nomination to the 2017 Travelwest Sustainable Travel Awards. This document takes you through the categories available and how the Awards are judged.
There are five categories to choose from:
Best Newcomer (nomination for an organisation)
Most Improved Workplace (nomination for an organisation)
Best Motivational Campaign (nomination for an individual or organisation)
Most Innovative Sustainable Travel Measure (nomination for an individual or organisation)
Sustainable Travel Champion 2017 (nomination for an individual)
There’s also a sixth Award category that you can’t submit a nomination for: Organisation of the Year. The winner of this category is picked from all nominations for all categories.
Each award will be judged on a case-by-case basis - previous winners are eligible to enter for this year’s awards, and multiple categories can be entered by each organisation (or individual) by submitting multiple nominations.
All sizes of organisation may submit a nomination, and the nomination should relate to work undertaken in the past twelve months.
The strongest nominations demonstrate:
· a longer-term commitment to sustainable travel;
· the impact of any initiatives;
· how ground-breaking the initiatives were;
· how this represents commitment beyond that expected from the organisation or individual;
· a focus on more than one travel mode.
The following pages will go through each category and provide examples.Best Newcomer
This category is for an organisation or business that is newly offering support and encouragement to employees, with the goal of reducing travel by car and adopting healthier and more sustainable modes of travel.
2015’s winner was Minuteman Press. There were several contributing factors to Minuteman Press’ decision to make a difference to their transport footprint – RPZ pressures contributed, but environmental impact and assistance from Travelwest were also factors.
Each member of staff reviewed their travel choices and made an effort to try new things; in addition, an electric bike and a folding bike were purchased for deliveries (in part through a match-funded grant from Travelwest). With significant initial work from the business, staff were trained up to use the bikes and they’ve become useful not only for deliveries but also for making the school run easier.
On top of that, Minuteman Press also won their category in the Big Commuting Challenge 2015.
2016’s winner was Sword Apak. Sword Apak made the decision to move to an innovative new office space at the end of 2015 to support the company’s expansion and its employees as the business and culture entered a time of change.
One of the most popular transport methods for employees at Sword Apak is cycling to work and we have a number of initiatives in place to support those that do and to encourage new people to travel this way. When we moved to our new offices we looked to improve our commitment to the scheme; we have installed secure new bike shed facilities for employees use and we have invested in CCTV and improved lighting in walkway areas when exiting/entering the building to ensure employees feel safe and secure. We also have a bespoke fob entry/exit gate for employee access when on foot or on a bike.
Our offices were refitted with showers for all employees to use as well as a new drying room being built and hair dryers installed.
We have implemented a scheme for flexible starting/leaving times for employees to coincide with local train arrival/departure times to further encourage this and to cater for our employees work/life balance.
For those travelling to work by car, we set up a car share initiative in 2016 to help new and existing employees to save on transport costs, reduce their carbon footprint and meet other members of our team. Our new offices feature priority parking spaces for 2+ car sharing and we use internal communication campaigns to encourage employees to get involved. We have invested in 2 electric car charging points that are available for employees to use at no cost and we also have priority disabled parking.
Most Improved Workplace
For an organisation or business that has made an outstanding effort to support their employees in travelling by sustainable modes through a variety of initiatives, including improvements to the environment and facilities in and around the workplace.
2015’s winner was WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff. The business moved from an out-of-town location to a new city centre location specifically chosen for its travel amenities – only four car parking spaces for 288 staff, but very close to Temple Meads and close to cycle infrastructure.
WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff engaged in a comprehensive batch of measures, including: group and one-to-one personal travel planning sessions; developing a travel plan; increasing the use of video-conferencing; converting car parking to bike parking; new showers, clothes storage and drying room; and many more.
2016’s winner was North Bristol NHS Trust. With enthusiasm embedded throughout the organisation’s culture, a wide array of sustainable travel initiatives has been implemented at North Bristol NHS Trust.
Penalty Charge Notices: Funds collected from these go back into improving the parking infrastructure and sustainable travel initiatives. An example of this was the installation of 4 bike shelters outside our emergency department (ED), providing 40 covered bicycle parking spaces which are fully utilised. This project was match funded between Bristol City Council and NBT PCN money.
TravelSmart: One of our successful, long-term, commitments has been our travel advice bureau (TravelSmart). Set up in 2013, managed by the Trusts Sustainable Travel Co-ordinator, TravelSmart provides NBT staff, patients and visitors with an extensive range of travel advice and support.
Loan Bike Scheme: Since 2013, the Trust has provided loan bikes for staff. Originally the fleet consisted of 8 standard bikes. Brompton and electric bikes were later added to the pool of bikes. In 2015, monitoring of the waiting list told us approximately 82% of the waiting list consisted of staff requiring a small ladies bike. In order to improve the waiting times for these staff, 4 small Ridgeback ladies bikes purchased in September 2015 from the TravelWest roadshow team. In order to successfully monitor the scheme, we now ask staff who have loaned a bike if they will be buying a bike to cycle to work. The responses, detailed in the table to the right, demonstrate the overall success of the scheme. Out of the last 50 staff members to borrow a bike, 32 have bought their own to use to cycle to work.
Best Motivational Campaign
For activities incentivising staff to make and sustain behavioural change and adopt more sustainable modes of travel, or to reduce travel. This may have been a combined activity across one or more companies.
2015’s winner was Wessex Garages. They undertook a programme and motivate staff to continue improving on their sustainable travel credentials. Wessex Garages increased the size of their EV fleet so that more than half of all internal journeys are carried out by electric vehicles, drastically reducing both fuel costs and carbon footprint.
Parts deliveries are also made by electric van, and electric vehicles for staff are subsidised and incentivised with a free guaranteed parking permit. Improvements to cycle facilities have been made across all branches, and these initiatives have led to a significant reduction in staff vehicles on site.
2016’s winner was Ultrahaptics. During the Big Commuter Challenge, employees were incentivised to log every sustainable journey.
Interactive screens around the office were taken over during the challenge to remind people, with specially created infographics, of the health benefits of walking and cycling or how many donuts worth of calories the team had used that day. Each week a crate of fresh fruit was delivered to the kitchen and offered to everyone who had logged a journey. Together, these two easy to implement incentives resulted in 100% participation from the company employees. A friendly rivalry was also encouraged with employees competing to be 'top of the leader-board' for most calories burned or CO2 saved. At the end of the Challenge period, the company held its own 'awards ceremony' celebrating those who had replaced the most car journeys and travelled the most miles sustainably and rewarding them with a bottle of wine and, of course, the admiration of their colleagues! There was also raffle where the number of sustainable journeys logged increased the number of tickets that were entered into the raffle. A simple gift voucher for a favourite lunch spot was the much sought after star prize.
Most notably, there were two significant long-term outcomes from the efforts of the company to promote the challenge. One employee who commutes regularly from Manchester to Bristol has switched from driving to using the train, realizing that not only is it a more sustainable journey, but also more reliable, and he can work on the train. Another employee was encouraged to try commuting by bike, something that she'd previously never considered. Getting over the hurdle of the first ride on the busy Bristol roads was a big step for her, so colleagues gave her advice and encouragement and she learned that with an increasing number of cycle routes in the city the journey was not as scary as she feared. She now regularly cycles to work and has invested in a new bike.
Ultrahaptics is proud that despite having parking spaces included in their office space, they remain unused. Nobody drives to work at Ultrahaptics and the team hopes to maintain this policy.
Most Innovative Sustainable Travel Measure
For an organisation or business that has developed an innovative scheme, technique or service that has helped overcome barriers to sustainable commuting or business travel.
2015’s winner was University of Bristol Students’ Union: The Students’ Union created an innovative new bike hire scheme called Balloon Bikes, intended for students to hire bikes affordably and easily.
The scheme was hugely popular and fully booked-up the day of its launch, with the whole project being student-led and securing funding from a number of sources including Travelwest.
Alongside this the Students’ Union has created a community to encourage students to get on their bikes, with other activities like led cycle rides and cycle cinemas.
2016’s winner was Ecosurety. Following up from their success in 2015, Ecosurety added to its growing portfolio of sustainable travel awards by winning the Most Innovative Sustainable Travel Measure category in 2016.Sustainable Travel Champion 2016
For an individual whom it is felt has shown outstanding commitment to the cause of sustainable travel over and above the normal demands of duty.
2015’s winner was Ben Luger of Ecosurety. Ben Luger was the driving force behind the joinmyjourney journey-sharing initiative, created by ecosurety.
After strong research into the attractiveness of car-sharing as an option, ecosurety created the joinmyjourney platform initially to provide to Aztec West (where ecosurety are based) but now extending elsewhere in South Glos and to the Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone in Bristol as well.
Using a simple registration process, Joinmyjourney provides the location of (anonymous) potential commuters on a map, with the option to initiate a dialogue. No personal details are provided. Users can also be notified daily, weekly monthly or in real time, when new users with similar journey routes sign up, as well as request to receive information about the most direct routes, or find tailored routes by specifying certain ‘waypoints.’ There is also an option for high-security organisations to create closed commuter groups.
The launch of Joinmyjourney has been the result of Ben’s hard-fought efforts to raise the profile of car-sharing at one of the most congested motorway interchanges in the region.
2016’s winner was Ann O’Driscoll of SusCom. Working tirelessly to support SusCom members and the wider business and private population of the north fringe of Bristol in travelling more sustainably, Ann has made a positive impact on some of the significant traffic congestion and related issues in the area.
Ann has worked hard, with the support of South Gloucestershire Council, to develop North Bristol SusCom into a key networking organisation in the area and a key stakeholder in key strategic developments and discussions around transport options and issues in the north fringe of Bristol.
As a key stakeholder in most of the activities undertaken during the Council’s LSTF project and also during the development and delivery of TW Transitions, she has been closely involved in developing and promoting the key annual milestones of the travel challenge, travel awards and particularly the travel to work survey to ensure a consistently good level of engagement amongst North Bristol SusCom members. Ann has been particularly heavily involved in the development, delivery and dissemination of results of the annual travel to work survey, taking a great deal of her own time during the 2016 survey to ensure the process ran smoothly and supporting the preparation of the results.
Ann has been extremely supportive to my business, offering creative ideas, support and direction as well as linking up key stakeholders in the council and our neighbouring businesses. The entire north fringe is benefitting from her tireless drive and she truly embodies the role and title of sustainable travel champion.
Organisation of the Year
This category cannot be nominated for. The winner will be chosen from those nominated for the above categories above and represents an overall winner.
They will be chosen based on how much they have achieved – they may, for example, have won an award for innovation but also be doing lots of promotional work and supporting staff to travel more sustainably.
In addition we will expect the Organisation of the Year to be working towards a travel, strategy or action plan and have set robust monitoring in place. You must be able to demonstrate an issue on site, showing how it was identified and resolved.
Size and resources will be taken into account and this category could be won by any business.
2015’s winner was the University of the West of England. UWE undertook a massive campaign to improve sustainable travel provision, with large investment in cycle hubs (with Travelwest support), bus services, cycle loan schemes and others. There was a 22% rise in bus usage and a 27% reduction in single occupancy car usage through previous investment, and a new strategy led to the creation of a new Travel Info Hub, the aforementioned cycle scheme, and an extension to the membership of the co-wheels car club.