Preparing your organisation's travel plan

To identify the preliminary needs of your travel plan, it is important to consider the 'why'.

• Why will a Travel Plan contribute to improved commuting?
• What are the tangible benefits that a Travel Plan can provide to your staff?

What are the 'drivers'? (both internal and external).

You should also assess the current travel and transport opportunities within your workplace. This assessment can also help you to determine which behaviour changes may have the most effect or benefits.

Conduct a site assessment

A site assessment can be as simple as walking around a workplace and surrounding area and recording information about how to get around on foot and all other modes of transport.

Complete an audit using the Site audit checklist (PDF 279.44KB).

Record this information so that a broad spectrum of current travel opportunities and challenges can be presented to the organisation.

This assessment can also help you to determine which behaviour changes may have the most effect or benefits. For instance, there may be more seats or faster travel times on public transport services outside of the peak, which staff could take advantage of if the organisation enables flexible working.

Also consider:

• frequency of transport services to the site and any future changes expected to the transport network.
• land use development.
• access issues for those who may feel more vulnerable or who have mobility impairments.

Transport for NSW has a range of publicly available data sources to provide you with more information.

Also, view the Open Data Hub and Developer Portal information (PDF 529.97KB).

Conduct an internal travel and transport policy assessment for your organisation

Look at internal human resource policies and other rules related to travel including car use and parking, working from home and business travel arrangements.

A good place to start is by using the Transport and policy assessment checklist (PDF 372.67KB).

Collect data to get a robust understanding of how people are travelling to your site and the underlying causes of their behaviour. Some common approaches are:

• employee focus groups
• organisational travel surveys
• Australian Bureau of Statistics Census Journey to Work data accessed at: www.transport.nsw.gov.au/data-and-research

Here is a sample of an Online staff travel survey (PDF 401.35KB).

For more information on different types of survey methods, view Survey methods for organisations (PDF 361.57KB).

Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping exercise

It could be useful to undertake a simple Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping exercise. This is done by plotting home locations of employees alongside public transport access, walking and cycling routes. This will allow you to see at a glance how your employees are geographically distributed across NSW. It will also provide a broad indication of how well served each area is by different transport options.

After you have analysed the data available, use the results to form a picture of the ‘problem’ that will help to define your needs.

See tips for analysing survey results (PDF 259.05KB).

To establish program management, you should secure senior management support and agree on the decision-making process and the resources needed for the plan's development.

Important things to consider in this stage:

Initial considerations

• Identify resources (time, people, budget) for Travel Plan development.
• Propose an overall timeline for Plan development.
• Identify key internal and external stakeholders that need to be engaged throughout the planning process.
• Organise meetings to share information and discuss the preliminary needs.

Agree on the decision making framework

It is important to decide early on:

• who will need to sign off on the Travel Plan?
• how will decisions be made?
• consider setting up information networks and a steering committee.
• Identify roles and responsibilities for Travel Plan development.

Establish relationships with key stakeholders as early as possible

These may include:

• Company Director
• human resources team
• marketing department
• facilities management
• employees
• neighbouring businesses
• local transport operators.

Engage with employees and stakeholders as early as possible and continue to engage throughout Plan development and implementation. Develop an engagement and communications plan to:

• inform about what is happening.
• encourage participation at all stages in the process.
• empower people with information about travel options.
• consult on what you decide to do. Be open and honest. Implement awareness raising and marketing campaigns.

Some points to remember are:

• Try to address the ‘What’s in it for me’ question to convince people to make changes to the way they travel. For example, giving staff flexibility around start and finish times can enable them to retime their commute for a better work life balance.
• Information alone is unlikely to be sufficient enough to deliver a change in travel behaviour; emotions and interest must be activated to generate change.
• Not everyone in the target audience will be ready to change their behaviour at the same time.
• Make changes predictable and gradual so staff can take the changes into account when making long-term plans.

Change will not necessarily be lasting, it can revert back, so ongoing reinforcement is needed.