Mobility Management on Business and Industrial Zones
Birmingham Chamber of Commerce has been successful in bidding for an EU Project, working with business parks and out of town businesses in Cannock Chase. The Project’s aim is to tackle the travel issues and the causes at each site and or Business Park and work with businesses and sites to find and put in place the solutions for the employer and their employees.
Birmingham Chamber of Commerce have identified businesses within Canock Chase and asked them if they would like to be a part of this project.
The EU Project involves five other EU Countries and stems from the fact that there is a very weak alternative to private car use for the home to work commute resulting in a percentage of car use higher than 80%. The cause lies principally on two factors, the location of business parks and Companies which are in remote areas, meaning that public transport links are weak and also on the employees themselves that demand flexibility in their transport options because of work needs.
The UK Partner – Birmingham Chamber of Commerce is concentrating their study within Cannock Chase and working with a sample of local businesses and business parks.
So How Can This Project Help Businesses?
It may be that there is a lack of car parking at your premises, that you have a green transport plan to adhere to, that your employees would catch a bus to work if there was one, that your company would like to set up a car sharing scheme and would like us to bring in the European experts to explain how this could work within your organisation and implement it etc. We can help with all of this through the MoMa.BIZ Project.
There was an initial meeting on 11th February and present were Cannock District Council, Staffordshire County Council, Arriva Bus Company and a small sample of local Companies. The meeting was led by Massimo Infunti (the Lead Partner) who flew over from Italy to introduce this Project and to explain how much this Project can do for businesses and their employees in Cannock Chase. The purpose of the meeting was for the Lead Partner – Italy to have a snapshot of the problems experienced by companies now and then the Lead Partner will return in 18 months time to see what a difference this project has made. A ‘before and after’ snapshot of Cannock Chase.
The topics discussed at the introductory meeting were:
- Company travel plans
- Lack of staff car parking spaces
- Parking management – how to manage and how to be a success
- Car sharing schemes and initiatives
- Increased bus stops required and additional bus services required at certain times
- Subsidised bus passes required for employees to encourage them to use public transport
- Installation of bike racks
- Increased cycle paths
- Bike schemes / moped schemes – subsidised
- Traffic calming measures
- Alternative transport
These were the issues and concerns raised by the Companies present and that we will be addressing through this project over the next 18 months.
To ascertain what solutions would be the most effective for each of the business parks and companies, each of the six EU Countries will be sent a survey which I will forward to you and which will need to be completed by all of your employees. The survey has been designed and written by the Lead Partners of this project in Asti, Italy who are experts in this field. It is an online survey that is very straight forward and will take no more than a few minutes to complete. On completion the online survey data is automatically sent to experts in Turn, Italy who will analyse the data and present their findings back to us.
The survey will be sent to each of the six Countries as an email link and I will forward to each Company for you to then forward this link on to your employees. For those employees who are not on email we can come into your organisation and sit with a laptop so that your employees can complete the survey. Alternatively we can provide paper copies of the surveys for you to distribute.
From this information we can then provide the support and the solutions. For example if the data shows that X amount of your employees would:
- Use a bus service then this data will be discussed with Arriva with a view to them putting on this additional bus route / time and we will present them with the data (they are aware of our Project and are awaiting the survey data)
- Cycle to work if there were cycle paths, bike racks and bikes we can follow this up
- For those employees who would consider Car Sharing, the survey data will identify which employees live in a close proximity to one another or on the route to work and we will bring in the trainers / experts to implement this scheme within your organisation. They work with Europe’s largest Companies and are hugely inspirational
- Parking management training
- Car sharing initiatives
- Reasons for setting up a Company Travel Plan
- We will be increasing the overall number of alternative choices for your employees for their home to work commute
- We will be calculating how much your employees spend on their home to work commute at present and offering cheaper alternatives
If you would like to be part of this project please email the Project Manager on michelle.baker@chamberestatesmanagement.co.uk.
All businesses will be presented with a copy of the surveys and the MoMa.BIZ final report which would be useful and highly informative for your organisation. I will use this data and the findings to assist you and your employees with the solutions. Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.
BIZ:
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 MoMaBIZ-Brochure-Final.pdf | 1.19 MB |