Summary
A company travel plan (CTP) is "a strategy for an organisation to
reduce its transportation impacts and to influence the travel behaviour
of its employees, suppliers, visitors and customers" (Rye, 2002).
Very often, the travel plan focuses on employee travel behaviour.
CTPs are also referred to as Employer Transport Plans and have in the
past been known as Green Commuter Plans or Green Transport Plans. The
term CTP is UK parlance. Elsewhere in Europe CTPs are referred to as site
based mobility management. The phrase mobility management alone refers
to more than a CTP; it is an umbrella term encompassing all attitudinal
and behavioural measures which can include information provision. In the
US CTPs are known as transportation demand management (TDM). As with mobility
management, TDM can be an umbrella term for more than just a CTP.
CTPs consist of a package of measures, which are implemented to reduce
solo car driving. A ride sharing scheme is a common measure. CTPs should
have a number of common elements. These elements are a co-ordinator within
the company (ideally full time), communication with staff, a staff travel
survey (to identify travel patterns and potentially useful measures) and
monitoring. Many organisations include incentives to take up alternatives
and some also initiate disincentives. The stages involved in changing
travel patterns through a CTP are the same generic stages of behaviour
change discussed under individualised marketing campaigns to reduce car
use.
Organisations introduce CTPs of their own volition to tackle parking
shortages, improve accessibility, solve staff recruitment and retention
problems, comply with planning regulations or in the case of some public
sector organisations, comply with government directives. Organisations
can also save money in the long term. This could be achieved by replacing
company cars with pool vehicles for example, or reducing the kilometres
travelled for business mileage through telecommunications.
Demand impacts are usually in terms of reductions in car use and increase
in other modes (depending on availabilty). The impacts are normally incremental
over time, and can generate increases in supply of alternatives to the
car.
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