Council fleet and staff travel

As one of the biggest employers in the area, the council has a wide range of influence that extends from its own operations and those of partners or stakeholders, to the processes under which its employees act, to how this transfers into the wider community. By making use of this influence, you should be able to make significant carbon emissions reductions from your transport operations, and embed these within your staff and the wider community.

It is doubly important to use this reach to demonstrate your leadership across the area and create a good impression of how the council is making efforts to increase efficiencies in the realm of transport. It is doubly important to use this reach to demonstrate your leadership across the area and create a good impression of how the council is making efforts to increase efficiencies in the realm of transport. There are two key areas that you can tackle this:

Council fleet and grey fleet

Your role as a leader of the community ought to begin by getting your own house in order. DECC reported for the year 2008-2009 that up to 12% of all local authority carbon emissions in England were a result of transport operations, excluding bus and commute emissions. Local authorities often rely heavily on employees using their own vehicles for business purposes, which they reimburse for the fuel consumed. This is known as a ‘grey’ fleet. It is often an overlooked area where significant costs and carbon emission reductions can be made. Managing this fuel usage by employees can be extremely difficult. Our transport advice consultants can help. They have years of experience managing ‘grey’ fleet costs and emissions and can help you find the savings you need.

The Energy Saving Trust offers a number of free transport advice services to help local authorities better manage their council fleet. Our fleet advice consultants have expertise in all aspects of fleet management and can help you find savings throughout your transport operations. Visit our Transport section for more information on how we can support you.

Staff travel

Your authority is likely to be one of the largest employers in the area. Therefore, you are potentially able to change the workplace behaviour of a significant number of people and, with the right combination of initiatives, embed more sustainable transport practices within the community at large. Simply by walking to work one day per week rather than travelling by car, a member of staff could reduce their commuting emissions by 20%, as well as reducing congestion and making healthy lifestyle changes.

Implementing a workplace travel plan should provide staff with alternative travel options such as car sharing or car clubs; a cycle to work scheme or salary assisted bike purchase; cycle buddies; travel card loans; incentives and workplace parking management. The Department for Transport has revealed that a successful workplace travel plan can reduce the number of people driving to work by 15%, equivalent to around 1 million fewer miles per year for a business of 2,000 staff (Essential Guide to Travel Planning).

This should be complemented by initiatives to encourage the most sustainable transport options when travelling for business purposes. This may take the form of paying a higher pence per mile for cycling or walking, or a higher reimbursement rate for employees who car share rather than driving individually. Where travel by car is still required, the council should provide and promote a pool of electric or low emission vehicles for staff use.

Ways to support and promote sustainable transport throughout the council may be to:

• Use staff notice boards or bulletins to post up to date public transport news and timetables.
• Raise awareness of company initiatives through internal communications.
• Take part in national initiatives such as Bike Week and Walk to Work Week.
• Promote the health benefits of walking or cycling through organisations such as Sustrans.
• Encourage meeting venues that are accessible by walking or public transport.
• Work with management and human resources to identify where home working might be a suitable option, even on a part-time basis.
• Encourage facilities staff to provide cycle storage, lockers and shower facilities in or close to the workplace.
• Promoting teleconferencing for external meetings can be an effective part of a workplace travel plan or emissions reduction strategy, and benefits extend to time and financial efficiencies as well as carbon savings.
• As well as demonstrating leadership on tackling emissions and achieving associated reductions, you and your staff are likely to benefit from financial savings, a better image for the council, improved health of employees and higher productivity.

If you target your messages well and get the incentives right, you are in a good position to see positive changes being adopted in employees’ personal travel as well. As with all strategies, you will need to set targets against which your progress can be monitored. This should start with establishing your starting point, or baseline, and setting challenging but achievable targets for improvement. This will help to demonstrate the results your strategy is having to your staff and encourage further improvements. Your targets should therefore be adjusted periodically to reflect this. To ensure the success of the strategy and demonstrate council support, it is important to assign appropriate resources to the scheme. Managing staff travel across departments in a local authority can be difficult, it may be advisable to appoint a staff travel coordinator to oversee initiatives and monitor progress.