Our Progress To-date
For this pillar of activity, we have reviewed our current travel and transportation practices to provide a baseline against which change can be measured. This has involved the following:
- Reviewing how students and staff travel to and from college
- Reviewing international travel for both students and staff
- Reviewing how staff undertake journeys necessary to the pursuance of day-to-day business
- Reviewing how our contractors, service engineers and suppliers travel to our sites, over what distance do they travel and by what means.
In order to, develop a more sustainable travel policy the college promotes a car-sharing scheme. The scheme is designed to encourage and enable more efficient use of transport and the scheme offers considerable advantages that include:
- A free parking permit – one permit issued per car share group
- Reduced congestion – by sharing cars staff/students can do their bit to help reduce congestion in the area
- Reduced pollution – cutting congestion will also help to reduce pollution
- Reduced CO2 emissions – which in turn will help to reduce the development of global warming.
The college also promotes the Cyclescheme, which is the UK’s number one provider of tax-free bikes as part of the governments cycle to work initiative which supports our sustainability agenda.
In order to support our move to electrification we have installed EV charging points at two of our campuses at Advance and the Black Country and Marches Institute of Technology, with an ongoing expansion plan for the future.
Our future actions
Using the data we have obtained to inform future choices we are in the process of implementing the following:
- Creating a travel sustainability hierarchy to encourage more efficient working methods to reduce non-essential travel. This includes a reduction of all international travel for staff with a reduction of work outside the UK, including work for the British Council
- Installation of more EV charging points located at our largest campuses including The Broadway and Inspired
- Promotion of car sharing schemes and the creation of cycle routes between campuses
- Enhancing the provision of facilities to support walking and cycling
- Collaboration with key transport operators to ensure opportunities for supportive measures, funding and economies of scale are maximised
- Reviewing the sustainability of College transport providers
- Enhancing the promotion of travel advice and support to ensure sustainable travel decisions can be made at the earliest possible opportunity
- Devising and launching a comprehensive sustainable travel and transport procedural policy.
Our Travel Sustainability Hierarchy Model
Our model can best be described diagrammatically in which the inverse pyramid represents the order in which we ask staff and students to consider their activity. Firstly, if a task can be achieved by digital means, online collaboration, virtual meeting, or via phone call we recommend this is the chosen interaction. There then follows a decision-making process with activity involving less sustainable travel being the least frequently preferred option.
