Transport Policy Sub-Committee
26 July 2010
Agenda item 5
TPSC/09/16
Transport Policy Coordinator Update
General
Since the last meeting in February emphasis has been on TPSC requested actions, the
promotion of sustainable travel and the car park management system.
Car Parks
This report has now been integrated with the car park update previously submitted and
additional information has been provided by the Security Manager and the Traffic Officers.
Between October to present the Traffic Officers have dealt with several issues, namely;

Reoccurring faults with pay and display machines
o The machines are about five years old. This is an ongoing situation, the
machines parts are sourced from aboard and the maintenance engineer is on
site once or twice a week fixing the 21 machines on campus.
o Our maintenance contract with Cale Bri Pac is due for renewal in November
2010. It is currently costing £8069.00 per annum. This contract is an
inclusive contract but does not cover non maintenance parts and out of
contract call outs due to for example, vandalism and emergency repair. The
University’s current yearly additional costs for call outs and parts not covered
costs an average of £1078 per month. By July 2010 Cale Bri Parc will have
invoiced in access of £10,000 in addition to the maintenance contract in
2009/10.
TPSC are requested to authorise a change of contract to a fully inclusive
contract:


The inclusive cover, currently £8069 per annum extends to 2 visits per
annum. To carry out routine maintenance, labour and all parts.
The fully inclusive contract costs £10,571 and cover extends to two
visits per annum to carry out routine maintenance. All call outs, labour
and parts.
By spending an additional £2502 to upgrade the maintenance contract we can
save over £7000 in additional charges.
o It is recommended that the machines be replaced with new technology as parts
for these machines are seemingly difficult to access and these delays impact
on all users of the car parks. A costed proposal will be brought to the next
meeting.

Faded Road marking lines
o A renewal of car park line markings is programmed during August/September
2010 and will contain measures to improve safety and the user experience of
the car parks.

PDA Machine for issuing penalty notices not registering previous warning notices.
o This issue was resolved in May 2010.

Counterfeit Pay and Display Tickets and Permit pay and display tickets used by non
registered vehicles
o The Traffic Officers have discovered during term time a seemingly continuous
supply of counterfeit pay and display tickets that students have been buying
from other students. Other students have made their own counterfeit tickets. It
is still unknown who has been selling these tickets but some have been easy to
detect whilst others have proven to be a good quality forgery. Each vehicle
identified has been clamped with an attempt to seize these tickets and obtain
the identity of the vehicle owner and the source of the counterfeiting.
o It has now been possible to issue penalty notices for this offence as the offence
has now been added to the PDA machines. It is quite a regular offence that the
Traffic Officers encounter and attracts an immediate fine of fifty pounds due
to the severity of the offence.
o If we are able to identify the owner as a student, a report is written and sent to
the Proctor. He then uses the University Discipline process and fines, were
applicable the student directly. A warning is registered or their car parking
permit revoked.

Faulty Clamp
o The clamps generally were in a poor state of repair and out of the thirteen
clamps available only four were actually able to be used, as a number of
crucial components had been lost.
o To remedy this and to avoid a future occurrence and the need to purchase
complete clamps, it was found that similar components could be purchased
and modified to avoid any further loss of parts.

Visitor Bay Parking
o This has been monitored closely by the Traffic Officers and it has been noted
that registered permit holders have been using this facility thus depriving a
visitor of a space. An offence code has also been added to the PDA so that a
notice can be given for this particular infringement. The usual three offence
system also applies for this area.
o As part of the car parking lining project ‘visitor’s parking only’ will be
marked in front of the bays to compliment the current Visitor Only signage.
The role of the Traffic Officer appears to have established itself and members of the
University and its visitors have generally welcomed the non confrontational approach whilst
still maintaining the need for good parking management. The feedback received by Traffic
Officers whilst on duty around the campus has been positive with many customers stating
what a better service they now receive.
Agenda item 5
TPSC/09/16
Car Share Scheme
This scheme is part of our Colchester 2020 Travel Plan Partnership and is inclusive in the
membership fee. Due to Colchester 2020 Travel Plan club investigating alternative options
for Liftshare and the degree of uncertainty with the licence no direct marketing has taken
place. Membership stands at 198. A full report is presented in agenda item 9.
Wombat Car Club (WCC)
Unfortunately, despite offering to market the WCC more during Feb/March WCC withdrew
their vehicle from campus in April as they felt that ‘Sophie’ was not being utilised to the
capacity that WCC felt was viable.
Public Transport
A staff salary advance season ticket was launched in conjunction with HR in November.
There are 19 people using this facility at an outlay of £11,901.
Bus Travel
A good partnership remains between First and the University despite recent customer
incidents. Maps, timetable and ticket information is being supplied to provide the University
community with up to date information. Funds have been obtained from Southend Borough
Council allowing the purchase of Octopus tickets for employees and students in Southend.
Rail Travel
The Department for Transport extended the franchise tender period which was due to begin in
April 2011. Any further announcements will be notified; in the meantime promotion of
available tickets and discount will be advertised on the transport web pages.
Cycling
Colchester Workplace Cycle Challenge
In May the University was invited to participate in a Workplace Cycle Challenge organised
by Colchester Borough Council, CTC (a UK national cyclists’ organisation) and Essex
County Council’s Sustainable Business Unit. The University won first place overall during
the 2 week competition with 2nd place in their category going to ISER and 2 other ‘spot’
prizes were won by staff.
During the last day of the challenge the Workplace Cycle Challenge team were invited to
campus with a pool of bike so that those without access to a bicycle could be involved in the
challenge.
The University has been awarded a certificate and congratulations for our involvement and
enthusiasm for cycling.
National Bike Week 2010
June saw Bike to Work week and events happening each day at every campus to promote
cycling.
In Southend and Loughton Cycle Sleuth was held whereby a tag was hung over the
handlebars of a cycle parked in our cycle racks at each site. The reward for cycling to
campus was a goody bag which was claimed by returning the tags with contact details.
Agenda item 5
TPSC/09/16
In Colchester the Blenda Venda session was held on the first day to show the fun part of
peddling, during the Tuesday morning a cycle census was held and cyclists offered a
discounted breakfast voucher and cycle maps. On Wednesday the Bicycle User Group held a
guided lunchtime cycle ride to the Quays and all were invited. On the Thursday cycle
training was offered but there were no takers. Friday Dr Bike was on campus all day offering
free cycle checks and 5 minutes maintenance.
Grants
The Transport Policy Coordinator has successfully secured matched and grants funding of
£79,249.41. Each sum has conditions of use:



North Towers Boundary Road Cycle Path matched fund of £67,276 from Colchester
Cycling Town
o To improve cycle facilities at the University complimentary to the new cycle
path.
University Square Cycle facility matched fund of £10,000 from Cycle Southend
o To work in partnership with Cycle Southend
o To provide cycle data to Cycle Southend
o To promote cycling and sustainable travel
Small Grants Round for Cycle Improvements of £1973.41
o To purchase lockers
Dr Bike
Dr Bike services have been available on Fridays’ between 12pm and 3pm until next term
when the service will resume to twice weekly; Wednesday 12pm – 3pm and Friday 12pm –
3pm. Due to the Rayleigh Tower improvement work Dr Bike has been relocated to Square 5
until further notice. Dr Bike has now changed its business name to the Bike Guru and now
attends the University in a small vehicle to provide his service. In October the University
will enter into the last year of contracted services and therefore will need to tender for Bike
Maintenance services should the TPSC wish to continue providing this service.
Re-Cycle Bike Sales
Re-Cycle, a bicycle re-cycling charity was invited on site to sell discounted cycle to student
and staff on 28 May and sold 10 bicycles. This has been particularly successful and Re-cycle
will be on campus every term to help achieve the aim to make cycling accessible to everyone.
Three further dates have been arranged, Wednesday 27 October 2010, Wednesday 9 February
2011 and Wednesday 4 May 2011.
Southend
A cycle maintenance ‘Dr Bike’ check was provided by Cycle UK at the Gateway Building
providing staff and students with a full bike check and advice. It is intended to invite Cycles
UK to provide their free service on a regular basis.
Guided lunchtime rides have also been successfully held at Southend.
Southend Borough Council’s cycle team are now working with the Student Union and
Campus Manager to encourage cycle use to the campus.
Cycle to Work Scheme
Agenda item 5
TPSC/09/16
The cycle scheme is working well; however, last payments (fair market value) from scheme
members are now being collected where appropriate and will be added to the Transport
income.
Year
Oct 2009
Nov 2009
Dec 2009
Jan 2010
Feb 2010
Mar 2010
Apr 2010
May 2010
June 2010
July 2010
No. Of Participants
9
0
0
0
0
0
2
4
3
1
Cycling infrastructure
A project costing £78,057 + VAT to increase cycle parking at North Towers has previously
been requested and was approved subject to available transport funds. The amount
authorised excluded VAT and it is therefore requested that the sum of £91,716 (inclusive of
VAT) is authorised for this project against the £67,276 grant from Colchester Cycling Town
matched funds equating to £24,440 from the transport fund. If authorised the project can
commence 1st August 2010 and will take 6 weeks to complete replacing the old boiler house
cycle parking which is now temporarily based next to the accommodation office. The new
facility will increase cycle parking by 45 new spaces to park 272 cycles.
Pedestrians
A very successful walk to work week was held in May to encourage walking to work and
highlighting the healthy aspect of walking in general. Primary Care Trust Health Trainers
were engaged to offer advice and give out pedometers to staff that pledged to record their
steps and walk more, especially walk to work.
During the week an organised walk to work was held from Colchester town centre to the
campus and guided lunchtime walks were held at both Southend and Colchester by members
of staff. Karen Stimpson from the PCT, Sara Stock, Colchester and Julie Jones, Clare Cook
and Zoe Manning Southend Campus are all to be thanked for a successful week.
Walk to Work Results
Location
No. Of
Steps
Colchester
1,417,610
708.81
150
30
20%
Southend
845,594
422.80
42
19
45%
Loughton
172,112
86.06
20
9
45%
No. Of Miles
No of Pedometers
issued
No. Taking
Part
% of
participation
Agenda item 5
TPSC/09/16
Collectively the University recorded 2,435,316 steps with 1,217.66 miles being covered in
the 4 days. The participation rate was extremely pleasing especially at Southend and
Loughton.
A number of walking events held by local authorities were also promoted.
Internal communications
A number of internal communications have been circulated with assistance from Jo Davis,
Internal Communications to highlight events, sustainable travel and other schemes. Further
communications are planned for the new year to highlight the aims of the Sustainable
Transport Strategy. Sustainable Travel initiatives can now be viewed on the plasma screens
around the University.
Website
Over the past months work has been done on transferring transport information from the
Estate Management Section web pages into corporate pages in accordance with branding and
accessibility of information. The project to update the website is not complete. Work will
continue in liaison with Internal Communication.
Cash Counting
The University is currently spending £5400 per annum (£450 per month) for the Students
Union to count the car park, pay and display money. It is proposed a counting machine is
purchased and that cash counting is done in house by the Traffic Officers. A suitable
machine will cost £2800. This will provide a saving of £1600 in the first year followed by a
saving of £5400 per annum thereafter. This will incur no other costs as currently the Patrol
Officers empty the machines and deliver the money to a secure counting area.
Sustainable Transport Strategy
A review of the strategy has been delayed due to work on other projects. A draft will be
presented at the next meeting.
TPSC members are asked to approve the requests within this report;
1.
2.
3.
4.
Investigating other payment methods for car parking
The re-tender of Dr Bike cycle maintenance services
Authorise £24,440 expenditure on the North Towers cycle park
Authorise the cash counting services to be brought in house.
Charlotte Humphries
Transport Policy Coordinator
Agenda item 5
TPSC/09/16