University of Essex Transport Policy Sub-Committee (TPSC) Update – February
2010
Introduction
It is an exciting time within the Travel Plan Club with lots of good projects getting underway, we
currently have a great group of Travel Plan representatives, who, although in the main are not
full time on Travel Planning, are dedicated to promoting travel behaviour change in their
organisations. We welcomed Mosaic Publicity as an associate member into the Travel Plan
Club in December.
In terms of direct working with the University, the main piece of work the Travel Plan Club has
been working on is the student survey. The online survey was developed and sent out in late
November with a 3 week period given for responses. The survey went into particular detail for
those stating they mainly drove alone to the University to try and determine why they didn’t or
wouldn’t consider a more sustainable mode. Feedback was also sought from sustainable
transport users as to how their journey to work could be improved.
The response from Wivenhoe campus students was good with 1148 responses compared to
433 in the 2008 survey, this equates to a 12% response rate. The latest Ipod nano was offered
as an incentive to participate and was won by Elin Evenson.
To summarise the headline results, of the 1148 responses, the majority, 47.4%, walked to
campus with 19.9% using the bus. Next came lone car drivers at 15.2%, with car sharing,
cycling, using the train and motorcycling all coming in at 5.7% or under.
In terms of proximity to the campus, 1.9% of lone drivers live within 1 mile of the uni, 6.5%
under 3 miles, 29.07% 3 – 5 miles and 47.73% 5 to 10 miles with 52.97% students who drive to
campus living over 10 miles away.
The survey provided a wealth of useful feedback on student travel behaviour. The many
comments and suggestions can be used to feed into proposals for on site improvements to
facilities and routes, external lobbying and development of soft measures. Many students also
expressed their willingness to be involved in focus groups which will be very helpful in the TPC’s
social marketing project in helping to further identify the barriers to students travelling
sustainably.
Walking
A successful preliminary session has been held with the PCT/CBC health promotion
representative, Rowena Macaulay from the University of Essex, and Simon Derrick, a
specialist in online mapping. Rowena’s and Simon’s “Walk Colchester” project and the
TPC’s “Colchester walk to work” walking promotion interests have much common ground.
The TPC’s current programme to promote walking is short term, for this spring, summer
and autumn, whereas the other parties are continuing with their current initiatives, and
looking at a two-year period for a range of wider promotions.
The TPC is currently working on developing 3 walking maps, to be ready to launch in Walk
to Work week 26th – 30th April 2010. In the longer term the TPC will look at how our work
can integrate with the “Walk Colchester” project in terms of lobbying for improvements for
accessibility and walking routes to make walking, as a primary mode of transport, easier.
The intention is to use the Cycle Colchester mapwork as a base on which to build up the
walking maps, so that the project is not starting from scratch. Three maps will be
developed to focus on A)Town Centre, B) North Colchester, C) South Colchester in 2010.
It is expected that sheets for West Colchester and East Colchester (including the
University) will be produced in 2011.
Plans for actual events during Walk to Work week are still to be discussed, but current
proposals include a photographic competition across the 2020 Travel Plan Club members
and the public, with exhibitions and potential for future inclusion in the Walking Maps as
points of interest.
A facebook group “Colchester walk to work” has been set up (PLEASE SHARE!), and a
website www.colchesterwalktowork.blogspot.com , with promotion to TPC members and
the public expected soon.
Public Transport
National Express East Anglia (NXEA)
The DfT has announced that National Express East Anglia’s franchise will not be extended
beyond 31st March 2011. The new franchise tender process has already commenced and
consultation documents are available on the DfT website with responses required by 19th April
2010. Our colleagues at CBC and ECC are statutory consultees, therefore we can feed into the
process via them, however we also intend to put in our own response.
In the shorter term we are concerned that the momentum for the Colchester station Travel Plan
that has been built up could be endangered, CBC colleagues are working on preventing this.
Also it seems unlikely that NXEA will be open to further discounting fares, however we will
continue to put together a business case and evidence for potential train users to present to the
new franchise if not NXEA.
Hythe Station. On Saturday 20 February, at 10:30, there will be the hoarding launch, which will
include striking artworks, and a Martin Newell poem based on the 9:03 train. We have been
informed that invitations are being sent out by the end of w/c 1 February.
Bus Services
Bus reliability is particularly bad at the moment, with congestion at North Station causing delays
in peak times throughout the bus network including the key University routes 61 and 62, this is
further being compounded by changes to automatic signalling at Eastgates which is resulting in
the gates being lowered for long period of time (5+ minutes on occasions). This is causing huge
tail backs. The TPC is in discussions with ECC as to what action has been taken so far to raise
the signalling issue with Network Rail, before lobbying for changes on behalf of the TPC.
The TPC is in communication with C-BUS who, though their bus surveys have a complete up to
date overview of bus performance in Colchester regarding problems and potential solutions. A
closer working relationship between the TPC and C-BUS has been talked about for some time,
however with the desire to become more focused on lobbying for improved bus reliability (see
Colchester2020 Transport commitment section below) this will now be taken forward in earnest.
Car sharing
Charlotte has been doing her own car share promotions using Liftshare’s marketing material and
administration access facilities to contact those registered to car share and to promote it to
others. This has resulted in at least 57 new registrations.
Other TPC organisations where car sharing has proved successful are the PCT and Colchester
Institute, where both have introduced dedicated car share bays which has proved an attractive
incentive. However both have also moved away from using the formal TravelTogether website,
following staff concern about privacy, instead they are using more low tech matching methods
though word of mouth, intranet notice boards and post code matching events.
It just goes to show that one size doesn’t fit all, and it will be interesting to see how Charlotte’s
use of the online facilities that go with our membership of Liftshare progresses, as to date no
other TPC representative has actively used these pages on a regular basis to promote their
scheme.
Business Travel
Individual TPC members are looking at reducing business travel by private car, several are
looking at introducing pool or car club cars and the implementation of ECC’s business travel
decision tree ethos and policy. ECC’s policy to reduce business travel by car has been very
successful to date, and the intention is that this will be a focus of a future TPC meeting so that
we can learn more about how ECC have implemented their scheme.
Cycling
Andrew has stood down from Chair of the communications group, however still sits on the group
to represent the Travel Plan Club.
The improvements to routes around Greenstead are almost complete and will be launched on
the 18 February 2010 at Greenstead Community Centre. The public event will run from 12:00 to
3:00, and will include Dr Bike and Blendavenda. A new segment map for the area has been
developed, and it includes the routes to and through the University.
The whole town cycle map should also be available in February. A print run of 15,000 has been
ordered. The town centre traffic management issues are unlikely to be resolved during the
current phase of the cycle town project. A public consultation is expected in February or March
2010, including suggestions that some town centre one-way streets become two-way to help
buses and cycles. Implementation is likely to be concurrent with the P&R site and new A12
junction opening in late 2011.
Other Travel Plan Club work
Market Segmentation and move towards Social Marketing
A big project that the TPC is beginning to get underway is the move to a more social marketing
style of promotion, where messages regarding travel behaviour change will be tailored towards
particular groups of people who we know are more open to considering a different way of
travelling.
The TPC is using an industry established market segmentation tool called Mosaic (Currently
used by CBC) to assist in this work. Mosaic categorises people into 1 of 60 types based on their
address. Each ’person type’ has a profile which goes into detail about their characteristics, likely
background, behaviours, motivators, consumer tastes, interests, openness to marketing etc.
The plan is to produce two Mosaic profiles across all 2020 TPC organisations, one of all staff
and one of just those who are registered to drive to work (where the data exists)
This would allow us to compare the profiles car park permit holders against all staff, which might
also help us decide which ‘person types’ to best concentrate on within the group that drives (as
they are our target audience) by gaining an understanding as to why others in the same ‘person
type’ use sustainable transport.
The dominant groups would be identified and post code mapped to see whether they lived near
a sustainable transport mode that could be used to travel to work. Then on analysing their
profile, we would use the information to establish a message and develop a targeted marketing
campaign (by targeting we mean to the group or household not to a named individual as this
information will not be available to us at this point in the project due to data protection law). For
example we might see that a particular type lives close to bus services, and might be open to
using the bus if they received a certain sort of argument, put to them using the sort of media
they are receptive to.
It would be very resource intensive to do this on an individual organisation basis however our
expectation that there will be similarities in the dominant groups across our member
organisations is already proving true (see appendix A), therefore in carrying out the project
across the Travel Plan Club membership there will be economies of scale in establishing
marketing campaigns that all members can promote.
There is huge scope within this project for short and long term marketing as more is learnt about
the habits and motivators of the people we want to encourage to change. The forthcoming travel
survey can also be used to ask whether respondents would be willing to participate in focus
groups etc which will give us the staff base within which to test marketing messages and further
identify barriers for using sustainable transport. We can also begin to get permission from staff
to target them in a more individual way. The project is exciting and we look forward to really
taking it forward once we have the necessary data from all TP organisations.
Other members and Associate Membership package
Close working continues with Colchester Borough Council (CBC), NEE Primary Care Trust,
Colchester Institute, North Colchester Business Parks and the hospital (CHUFT) on their travel
plans.
CBC has recently completed their accommodation move and move to flexible working including
reallocating car park spaces so that the majority of staff are parked in a car park a 20 minute
walk from the office. The current 50p a day charge that has been in place for the past 5 years,
will increase to £1 in April 2010 and further increases have been agreed in forthcoming years.
Colchester Institute are starting a retender process for their car parking contract. They are also
reviewing the charge made to staff for a car park permit.
CHUFT are starting a review of their travel plan and the PCT are looking at how to build on their
car sharing success.
NCBP ATP is progressing slowly, and making connections with the local business community is
proving difficult.
The associate membership package for smaller organisations is under development and being
piloted with our current associate members, with the intention of formally promoting it at a
Colchester Connected event in the autumn.
The aim with the associate membership, which will be free, is to build up a network of smaller
organisations interested in promoting sustainable transport, with the TPC giving them the tools
to promote sustainable transport, access to incentives, marking materials, networking
opportunities, and a collective voice for lobbying. However this level of membership will not be
offered dedicated assistance in developing and marketing their travel plan, which will be a
service reserved for our paying members such as the University. We are also working closely
with ECC in identifying potential new paying members through either planning agreements or
who voluntarily want to develop a travel plan.
ECC’s Travel Plan accreditation scheme
The membership levels will also link in with ECC’s new Travel Plan accreditation scheme which
they have recently introduced across Essex, where an organisation can have their travel plan
formally accredited to a bronze, silver or gold level depending on what they have implemented
and progress made.
ECC expect Colchester to prove to be the exemplar in Travel Planning within Essex, which will
further encourage others to join us and give us all encouragement to continually improve.
ECC are currently working with Travel Plan Club members to identify which level of
accreditation their Travel Plans are currently achieving.
Colchester2020 Transport Commitment
The TPC team have been asked to be involved in a review of the Colchester2020 Transport
commitment action plan, and await participation in a forthcoming meeting where updates on key
projects will help feed into the action plan review. These key projects include
 A133 proposals
 A12 junction, Northern Approach Road phase 3, and Park and Ride
 Cycle Colchester
 Colchester North Station
 Town Centre Regeneration
In terms of influencing Travel Behaviour, the TPC are ever conscious of the challenge of
convincing people that sustainable transport can compete with the comfort and convenience of
the car. Now that a number of discounts are available for public transport the TPC feel the real
focus should now be concentrated on lobbying for improvements in the infrastructure and quality
of services that would help sustainable travel compete, for example, making bus travel reliable
and quick, walking routes easier and safer, and secure cycle parking.
Feedback is welcomed from TPSC, and TPSC is requested to endorse the proposals
made specifically for the University.
Emily Harrup & Andrew Budd
Colchester2020 Travel Plan Coordinator team
Appendix 1
Mosaic example
All University car park permit holders have been ‘Mosaiced’, with the resulting profile below.
This shows a wide range of people ‘types’ which may be due to using postcodes instead of
addresses (Addresses are more accurate) however there are still a number of groups that stand
out, namely C15’s, C17’s and K58’s which interestingly are also the three most dominant ‘types’
within CBC (the only other TPC member to have been Mosaiced so far).
To give a small bit of insight into one of the ‘types’, the C15’s are very concerned about the
environment but due to being financially comfortable are more reliant on cars and tend to own
several. They like to take a leadership role in their local community and are willing to try new
products and services if a rational argument is provided to them. They are unreceptive to
posters and TV but are open to communication via social networks, shops, broadsheets and
telephone advice lines.
The ‘types’ have yet to be post code mapped which would show whether they live close to, for
example, bus, train or cycle routes, this would then provide a starting point for developing a
targeted marketing campaign.
University carpark passes by Mosaic type (postcode)
140
130
120
119
120
95
100
60
35
16
10
11
66
60
50
34
18 1416
9 13
3
24
15
13
109 8 9 10
6 98
1 1
29
28
19
7
1 3
12
22
A1
A2
A3
A4
A5
A6
A7
B8
B9
B10
B11
B12
B13
B14
C15
C16
C17
C18
C19
C20
D21
D22
D23
D24
D25
D26
D27
E28
E29
E30
E31
E32
E33
E34
F35
F36
F37
F38
F39
F40
G41
G42
G43
H44
H45
H46
H47
I48
I49
I50
J51
J52
J53
J54
J55
J56
K57
K58
K59
K60
0
17
11
3
49
40
35
29
69
67
59
65
55
53
40
20
66
84
83
77
7573
80
93