Earlier this year Lancaster University won the ACT TravelWise Commuter Friendly Workplace award along with Quorum Business Park at the annual ACT TravelWise conference and awards. Philip Longton, the Universities Travel & Environment Co-coordinator gives a highlight of their winning entry.

Lancaster University's Travel Plan was key in its achievement of the title of Commuter Friendly Workplace of the Year 2011 in the ACT TravelWise awards for sustainable travel.

The award is for the organisation that can demonstrate having made the biggest strides towards making their offices more accessible to commuters without single occupancy car use.

The proportion of staff at Lancaster University travelling to work by bus has doubled since 2004 while the proportion travelling alone by car is down by 17% and the proportion of staff car sharing is up by 17% over the same period from 2007 to 2011.

The University now has the highest cycle to work rate of any Lancashire employer at just over 14%, while the number of students cycling or walking to campus has doubled in less than two years. Travel and Environment Co-ordinator Phil Longton said: "By 2008 the Travel Plan had been extremely successful in achieving its objectives and had been recognised and promoted by the Department for Transport for doubling student cycling and walking in less than two years. Student car use was reduced by 32% in just 21 months.

"Last year, a uniquely successful partnership with Stagecoach introduced heavily subsidised annual staff bus passes, brand new University-branded buses, new bus routes, ticketing and other service improvements utilising a high frequency bus service. This increased staff bus use by 71%."

Stagecoach invested £1.5m into 12 new University-branded Enviro 300 buses for University bus routes. This investment was only made possible by increased University bus use and has been boosted by the latest environmental technology to help lower the University's carbon footprint.

Stagecoach Cumbria and North Lancashire Managing Director Nigel Winter said: "We would like to congratulate Lancaster University on winning this prestigious award. We are delighted to have worked alongside them to deliver such a significant shift towards bus travel by staff. The results show that our efforts have proved extremely successful with more and more university staff now turning to greener, smarter bus travel for their journey to work"

Other improvements from the Travel Plan include:

• A 288% increase in the sale of Staff Car Share Permits from 2009/10 to 2010/11 following a 33% price reduction for the permit and other benefits to raise car sharing levels
• More postgraduate research students cycle than travel by car
• Women cycling to work has increased by 35 per cent
• Business use of train travel has increased by 17 per cent
• Cycle counter data from the University cycle path revealed a 20% increase in cycling in just two years and an average growth of 57% in April, May and June between 2007 and 2010. These increases were delivered in partnership with Lancaster City Council's Cycling Demonstration Town Project
• 214 bicycles sold through Green Lancaster since October 2009, including 147 reconditioned cycles
• Over 230 staff and students have registered a journey on Sharedwheels since 2006, the University's online contacting system to enable more car sharing

Philip Longton
Travel & Environment Co-ordinator
Lancaster University
01524 594 413
p.longton@lancaster.ac.uk