Commuting and sustainability

So, I am covering the team sustainability lead while my colleague is on ML.

An idea that’s come up is to encourage people to walk/cycle/bus/car share instead of driving for a couple of weeks, in a ‘try it and you might like it’ vein. Let’s assume that changing facilities and secure bike storage aren’t a problem.

We were thinking of having a prize for most CO2 saved or something.

Has anyone been involved in running such a things, and how did you do it/how did it go?

Thanks!

Let people who travel sustainably leave ten minutes early

Good luck. You may have more chance with the public transport thing, but it all depends upon where they live, and entering Autumn, might not be the best time

I think Strava have a commuting/saving CO2 challenge each month, nor sure how it works.

@andy_sweet Nice idea but the shift change is when the shift change is.

TBH I was thinking car share might go better than anything else at this time of year, though we have a hard core who will ride across the city in all weathers. They’ll already be coming in by bike though…

An idea that’s come up is to encourage people to walk/cycle/bus/car share instead of driving for a couple of weeks, in a ‘try it and you might like it’ vein. Let’s assume that changing facilities and secure bike storage aren’t a problem. We were thinking of having a prize for most CO2 saved or something.

Getting everyone to cycle one day a week only when its sunny is a better result than one hardcore nutter riding 50 miles a day rain, sleet or hurricane; and everyone else thinking they are mad and getting back in their cars. A team effort or group competition is better than an individual competiton.

Also push the idea of multi modal (public transport + bike) as many people don’t consider it.

However, for straight public transport, Based on places I have lived and worked, due to pupolation density, PT routes etc; people are either in a situation where PT is convenient and car travel/parking is annoying, time consuming and expensive; or cars are easy and convenient, and PT is horrendously time consuming or impossible. And they’ve figured that out for themself within the first week of their job.

Its rare that choosing between one or the other is an even vaguely balanced choice which you could sway with a little competitionn or eco-conscinence.

Hire some e bikes from a local shop for a week or two?

Might test your company’s commitment to sustainability though, as it costs actual money!

Do you have budget? One place I worked offered car shares a breakfast bap on a Friday, another did a CO2 saved over a month with prizes, but all that has a cost. 

The problem with a challenge with a winner is that the biggest benefit is probably getting those with the lowest footprint (living closest) to change but they feel they are at a disadvantage.

Offer a free breakfast to anyone travelling “actively” (walking / cycling).

Banking extra days holiday for anyone on active or public transport. 5 days cycled = 1 extra day of leave, that kind of thing.

The main difficulty is proving it. I know a local school ran something similar and all that happened was the parents dropped the kids off a street or 2 away and the little darlings walked 100m and claimed their free breakfast.

Depending on the workplace, you may need to consider how this impacts people who WFH or do hybrid working cos no-one likes to feel they’re being omitted from freebies so if the office cleaner is getting 5 free breakfasts and extra day’s leave for a week of cycling in but the Head of [Department] is getting nothing cos they WFH or live 60 miles away, it may not go down well!

TBH I was thinking car share might go better than anything else

A previous workplace of mine tried this (mostly cos the car park was too small for everyone!) and it turned out to be a massive PITA for all concerned.
A picks up B cos it’s on the way but when it comes to B’s turn to drive, they’re not going to go 5 miles the other way to pick up A.
C and D normally work 9-5 but today, at short notice D needs to work until 6.30 which completely screws them both for getting home.
Turns out that E and F work fine together in the office but can’t stand each other’s taste in car music and refuse to share the same space.

All of these were genuine reasons offered by employees.

Multimodal travel is a bit of a PITA – we’re about a 20 min walk from the tram and for reasons known only to TfGM you still can’t take bikes on Metrolink even off peak. Maybe we should work up how this might look and park it until the spring when the weather is improving. Car parking is a raging skip fire for a lot of reasons (it was free during the pandemic and among other things we’re still dealing with the legacy of induced demand that generated).

We do have more than one hardcore nutter mind you…

This is going back a few years, but I think the way my employer at the time (british gas/centrica) did it , was to give free breakfasts to anyone who stopped using their car to get to work.

Manchester then !  We’re 20 mins from the Tram, similar from any train station – out of town in Hulme. Parking is very limited – on a needs basis. We have a fair few cyclists, but not that many that do 10 miles plus like me, most are under 5 miles.

We were thinking of having a prize for most CO2 saved or something.

We did this at our place, but after a few weeks, only a few 10s of people were actually interested and eventually the car sharers were the winners despite many other trying diligently in all weathers to make a difference.

I think it left a slightly sour taste that the folks who won were those commuting the greatest (most ridiculous distances) who managed to share occasionally and were doing it only to save money and which actually cost them very little in terms of lifestyle change.  As soon as peoples workshifts changed they went back to driving.

If you’re going to do it, make sure there’s a prize for biggest individual lifestyle change, not just CO2.

Getting everyone to cycle one day a week only when its sunny is a better result than one hardcore nutter riding 50 miles a day rain, sleet or hurricane; and everyone else thinking they are mad and getting back in their cars. A team effort or group competition is better than an individual competiton.

This. The real target is persuading those that live modest distances from work who could change their ways is more impactful than some lycra dude sweeping all the prizes with their outlier effort. Make it less alpha male bragging rights and more inclusive – a wall of selfies of my ‘green’ commute. A ‘prize’ for everyone who does at least a little bit – no matter how small. The change in routine for someone who also takes the kids to school to arrange a car share might be more monumental that Dave from IT who lives alone and his smelly bib shorts that he leaves drying on the radiator. A prize for the best life ‘hack’ (god, I hate that term, but it’s here so lets use it) that makes sustainable commuting more possible.

Hire some e bikes from a local shop for a week or two?

This too – ‘come give it a shot and see what you think’. And not some lairy full bouncy eMTB – a proper step thru dutch style commuter with guards and a rack you can ride in a skirt. And now you’ve tried it, he’s the leaflet about B2W – you are preapproved.

Can you combine the ebike test with helping people find a safe route to work and clothing advice?

One of my colleges claimed cycling to work changed his life (hopefully for the better) and saved him money. One of his friends said we transformed his commute after we showed him an off road route.

You could also try explaining the other benefits to cycling like pedaling through the park and looking at the ducklings and juvenile herons.

 leave ten minutes early

10 MINUTES?! to get people to change from driving you’d need to give them a whole day off! It all depends where you work (aside from the weather) if you’ll get any takers. My place of work is on horrible roads (one fella started riding again after a few years off and got knocked off by a car the very first day! Not ridden since) – there’s a good amount of hardcore cycle commuters – can be nearly 40 bikes in the shed on a nice day – but switching people out of their cars? “Oh no, I have to get the kids ready” “I live too close to bother” (real one from an actual cyclist), but mostly “The roads are too dangerous”…

Good luck with it anyway!

Some companies in France give longer holidays to employees who use trains rather than planes to go on holiday. For example if you take the train to holiday in Italy you get an extra day’s paid leave as taking the train loses you a day. Works well according to a news report. That’ll potentially save more CO2 than 2 weeks of not commuting by car.

Thing is the employees were eco-aware and motivated, it’s not going to work with flabby climate sceptic conspiracy nuts.

@fossy Oldham, so no train. Ultimately there’s a TfGM planned active travel scheme from Rochdale to Ashton via Oldham which will go past my workplace but that’s years away, and getting the train out to Rochdale to come back in seems a bit roundabout.

Some good thoughts/suggestions here – thanks all, and keep them coming!

Don’t Strava rides labelled as commutes automatically get a “CO2 saved” figure these days? Couldn’t confirm myself, as I’ve not worked for two years now.

Looking at the tram map of Manchester you can get the tram from Rochdale to Oldham and into Manchester. Cross routes like from Whitefield and Ashton look more of a problem.

How about giving people willing to try the bus or tram free tickets for a set period ( week or month?)

Have a big incentive for people who complete a months sustainable travel of an extra day’s holiday?

Stop commuting and encourage work from home – assuming the role enables it

Can you crib any ideas from here? https://www.lovetoride.net/uk

Can you get them to record the commuting by public transport or bike and convert the miles saved into some sort of league table? Maybe miles x2 for buss, x3 for bike, something like that, then have a weekly winner?

Have you looked at this? https://beeactive.tfgm.com/support-for-employers/

Also, I think they were piloting bikes on trams. So there is hope!

Devils advocate/HR head on: for those who have no realistic options other than to drive, it could potentially be construed as discrimination if you are offering perks and prizes.

I have a real world example of this… I think it fizzled out, but our company offered discount metro cards for bus/train.. but a few people who lived futher out than the metro zone argued it was unfair.

Technically correct, but the company was also trying to do the right thing, but of course it wouldn’t be applicable to people commuting from further afield.

In typical STW fashion I’ll suggest an alternative option (that could also be run in conjunction with active travel campaign).

Hugh Montgomery, Intensivist @ UCL and massive in the world of sustainability (and apols if teaching you to suck eggs) has some great resources at realzero.earth  including the 7 Acts that we should all be doing. This includes more green travel, but also things like moving to sustainable banks, utility supplier etc that are all things that may be ‘easier’ for those that are not going to jump onboard with active travel in the first instance/ever!

Devils advocate/HR head on: for those who have no realistic options other than to drive, it could potentially be construed as discrimination if you are offering perks and prizes.

I have a real world example of this… I think it fizzled out, but our company offered discount metro cards for bus/train.. but a few people who lived futher out than the metro zone argued it was unfair.

Technically correct, but the company was also trying to do the right thing, but of course it wouldn’t be applicable to people commuting from further afield.

Just get someone to complain about the free parking places for those driving in from further afield as an unfair benefit (taxable of course)… Carnormativity in action again.

Perhaps organise some form of cycle training to help people overcome their fear of cycling in urban traffic. Could they be spared to take part in the training during work hours? Might get some of the more local ones to consider changing their ways.

The kg saved is shown on Strava if you choose “commute” as ride type.

Some local “community hubs” have very cheap deals hiring for hybrid type ebikes/ cargo bikes to encourage changing local habits.

Our local one is £5 for a resident to hire for a day,  cheap weekly deals I think as well.

Could you just get a large poster map printed out of the area with all the commuting routes (quiet bike routes, bus, train) marked on it, print it out and put it in a communal area? Might help people realise about the other options, also makes a talking point for people to gather around.

Sorry to sound negative but quit whilst you are ahead.

Those who want to not use their cars already will and the rest wont be that bothered. Why would I want to spend longer commuting than I had to, I would also include shower / changing time in that ie door to desk?  It my personal time that is being used, if work want me to spend longer getting to work that I need to that’s fine if they want to pay or incentivise me to do it. I have commuted by bike and its much nicer sat in the car

I should maybe be clear that there’s no money here so perks/prizes are going to be very limited. The plan was to try and do something time limited to prove to people that not driving was possible.

@WBC Yes, heard him talking at an ICM conference a while back. Which was terrifying. We are trying to reduce plastic use/CO2 emissions quite hard at work too, which has also had the side benefit of saving us some money.

@towpathman Agreed, but for us this isn’t an option.

@matt_outandabout We pay for parking, which isn’t the same as there being a space. Not infrequently someone starts shouting about how parking should be free for NHS staff which led to an excellent response in the BMJ from one of my friends

@stwhannah Not sure what’s going on with tram trial. Was meant to be on the Bee Network Committee meeting agenda last week and wasn’t. I believe that, despite a successful off peak trial, there are concerns about the internal layout of the trams which sounds rather like stalling.

We’ve run a few team events involving bikes which in one or two cases has led to modal shift (and in one person’s case, a transformation from a non-cyclist to the Last of the Flandrians, including a 125 km ride last week during an event, and a solo lap of Greater Manchester in a previous year)

I’m in a similar role, permanently, looking at energy and CO2 reduction across our site.

Employee commuting is on the agenda to figure out. Not easy, for all the reasons mentioned. I guess for me I should practice what I preach and not drive my diesel estate 17 miles to work. But I don’t want to ride that far and risk getting knocked over or robbed. I studied the idea of cycling to the train and then to work, but the trains here only allow 2 bikes and it’s first come first serve. If I turn up to get the train and there’s bikes on it then I’m screwed.

There are companies out there that help with this sort of thing, with apps for car sharing, supporting alternative travel methods with customised routes. We’re investigating this option though I can’t remember the company.

It’s a difficult one as for companies the employee commute is mostly out of their hands but is also a contributing factor to their overall carbon footprint.

Offer individual consultations, many people haven’t thought all the options through and for those with unavoidable commitments it at least validates them. First people foing school runs etc get them to think about when that wont be an issue e.g. my youngest goes to big school on the bus in Sept so I’m planning to use cycle to work next year to get an e bike an cycle commute 3-5 days a week

There are complex factors at play here so trying the silver bullet approach always leaves some groups excluded

Transport for gtr Manchester have green travel teams to help with this stuff, get in touch with them. The tfgm app has journey planners

I studied the idea of cycling to the train and then to work, but the trains here only allow 2 bikes and it’s first come first serve. If I turn up to get the train and there’s bikes on it then I’m screwed.

Which operator? Cos I’m in the same situation with Northern (no booking required but a theoretical max of 2 bikes per train) and the only times I’ve had a problem getting on is too many people on it. I’ve routinely seen 6+ bikes on some trains.

Northern too.

Train station isn’t in the direction I would cycle to work, so I’d be adding 90mins of cycling onto my commute and I don’t like that prospect. I’ll probably try it one weekend and go to the in-laws as they live near ish to work.

The main problem for me is fear of being run over, not an issue if it’s instant death for me but the wife and kids may not appreciate it.

In spain you can offset your gym membership from your taxable income, so you get your marginal tax refunded.

I asked the guy in the recycling centre how many cyclists he got in a day, me and 1 other.

I used to use the train very early and take bike by train and then guaranteed the bike would go in and then cycle home.

Worked well and not too hot and sweaty on arrival at work. Just pootled the short distance in from the station.