Mobility management at Southwark Business Areas 

Location

This OPTIMUM² pilot site consists of two business areas in south London, Bankside and Camberwell. The former is a regenerated area that now has largely office based employment, although with some major cultural attractions; the latter is a slowly regenerating but still poor area with a variety of small and medium sizes businesses located around a district shopping centre, as well as two major hospitals, Kings College and Maudsley. The focus for Mobility Management in these areas has been based around area Local Travel Plan groups (LTPGs). In Bankside, the LTPG has been part of the Business Improvement District (BID) organisation Better Bankside, which has a wide remit to improve the area on behalf of local businesses, which voted it into existence and which pay for it.

 
Accessibility profile

Bankside is on the edge of a World City Centre – there are generally high levels of public transport provision and use due to excellent public transport and generally good pedestrian accessibility (although with some personal security concerns), and congestion and lack of parking for car users. The perception of the area has changed from one of being very peripheral to being extremely fashionable within 5 years although this was not related to the project. Bankside is served by one east west and two north-south underground lines and very high frequency rail lines to the north and (mainly) south and southwest, plus an extremely dense and frequent high quality bus network oriented mainly north-south, with bus priority wherever there is sufficient streetspace – more information at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/.
The entire area has controlled parking on street such that at most kerbspace parking is prohibited during the working weekday; where it is allowed, there is an hourly charge of around €2 for visitors and a permit costing €120 per year is required for residents. Parking in resident’s bays is controlled until the later evening and in pay and display bays until the early evening. Currently the Council is consulting on extending hours of operation of the controlled zone to later evenings and Saturdays. Off street parking costs £4/€6 per hour. The quality of cycling facilities is variable but cycling has been increasing in the past few years, though mainly not due to the project, but to the introduction of road pricing and security concerns on the underground.

Camberwell. Parking on street is currently uncontrolled and free in North and West Camberwell but not the town centre, but the Council is consulting on making the whole area a controlled parking zone. Off-street parking costs about £6/€9 per day. The quality of the walking and cycling environment varies from good to off-putting, with significant personal security issues. Public transport links are as follows:

Underground – trains every 3 minutes. Both of these stations are out of walking distance of Camberwell and so require a change onto a bus:

• Elephant & Castle (Bakerloo & Northern Lines)
• Oval (Northern Line)

Rail:

• Denmark Hill – services every 15 minutes
• Loughborough Junction – services every 10 minutes

Buses (most at least every 10 minutes) to/from:

• Elephant & Castle and east central London - 12, 35, 40, 45, 68, 171, 176, 468
• Kennington Oval and west central London - 36, 185
• Inner east London - 12, 171, 36, 345
• South and southeast London - 176, 185, 40, 484, 12, 468, 68
• Inner southwest London - 35, 45, 345

Mobility profile

Numbers of travellers
Bankside - 35 000 employees working in the area, a number that has increased 30% in five years; visitors estimated over 5 million a year. Breakdown by gender and age not known.

Camberwell – Overall number of employees not known. (Kings College Hospital 15,000). Breakdown by gender and age not known.

Origins of travellers
Bankside – Travel survey shows that around a third of staff live less than 5 miles from work, a third 5-10 miles and a third 10+ miles away. Fully 17% travel 20 miles or more to work.

Camberwell – some 75% of the employees of local businesses who responded to the 2007 travel survey live less than 5 miles away. In contrast, a Kings College Hospital survey of some patient groups revealed that some come from as far away as East Kent (nearly 50 miles and over). 

For more detailed information, see:

Results of the Better Bankside Travel Survey 2006 for Larger Businesses

Results of the Better Bankside Travel Survey 2006 for Smaller Businesses

Institutional context

London has its own special government structures. There is an elected Mayor, who is responsible for producing comprehensive plans on transport and planning (Mayor’s Transport Strategy and The London Plan – The Mayor’s Spatial Development Strategy). Both are scrutinised by the Greater London Authority. The Mayor has overall jurisdiction over Transport for London, responsible for main road, and regulating the running of Tube, Bus, Tram services as well as licensing river and taxi operators. Responsibility for local transport including all streets other than main roads and for local walking and cycling improvements rests with the local councils which here are called London Boroughs (of which Southwark is one). However, much of the funding for these local improvements comes in the form of allocations from Transport for London. Southwark is also the local planning authority, applying the guidance set out by the Mayor, but has its own more detailed guidance on the links between new developments and monies for transport improvements. Money is also raised through the planning process using planning obligations with developers.

There are a number of new developments in Bankside which have Section 106 agreements with travel planning obligations attached (i.e. the developer has agreed with the Council to implement some aspects of a travel plan and if they do not this can in theory be enforced), but these are not necessarily directly linked to the OPTIMUM² work. Typical planning obligations include requirements for developers and occupiers to fund transport and environmental improvements in the entire area of Bankside, such as better footways, CCTV, street furniture, signage, bus stops and cycle routes and parking.

Southwark contracted SEA –RENUE, and researchers from the University of Westminster and University of Loughborough to work on the project. Other key partners include the Better Bankside Business Improvement District (for Bankside) and Kings College Hospital, the Maudesley Hospital and Camberwell Renewal Partnership (for Camberwell). Transport for London and the subregional transport body, SELTRANS provide a supporting role.

Better Bankside is an important stakeholder in the OPTIMUM² pilot here. It is the UK’s third-ever Business Improvement District (BID), approved (as the law requires) by a ballot of all businesses in the area. A BID is an independent, business-led company which tries to make the environment for business in its area a better one. Its has to provide services over and above those provided by other organisations. It is funded by a compulsory levy on businesses in its area. After five years its future must be reviewed and if it has not performed to businesses’ expectations it will not continue.

Motivations for mobility management

Bankside. Large numbers of people already work in the area, and with a number of new developments expected in the next few years, and it is also an important tourism and cultural destination. Public transport, which is already near to capacity at peak times, will be severely stretched. When the ballot took place for the BID, many businesses taking part identified transport as an area in need of significant improvements. On the other hand, later consultation has shown it to be an issue of relatively low importance as public transport in the area is perceived to be good.

Camberwell. Local hospitals and high street shops lead to increasing levels of traffic. Car parks cannot be expanded and there is little prospect of a tube or new rail link in the near future. The hospitals suffer from some accessibility problems, especially from the east and west.

Buses and other public transport improvements

Public transport was not a focus of the Southwark project because the public transport system is already at capacity in the peak with only minor improvements possible in the medium term. Therefore other activities sought to reduce pressure on the public transport system by transferring trips to cycling and walking.

Promoting walking

The Street Audit Tool involved developing a specific methodology for use by employees to examine the pedestrian environment of an area local to their workplace. The aim was to encourage more walking and to identify barriers to walking in the local area, such as personal security problems and excess street furniture and litter. The various improvements that have been identified for implementation are:

• Enhancement to streetscape design to encourage better use of Southwark Street by pedestrians and cyclists, to include discrete areas where people can sit and secure bicycles, planting of trees, plants in themed planters and works to bus stops. The aim is further to break down the 'brick canyon' feel to the street. 
• Improvements to the entrance onto Clink Street at Bank End to include new lighting, brick cleaning and bridge painting.
• Commission a study to develop a strategy for waste management in and around Borough Market, to include making a provision for bin storage.

Promoting cycling

The Bikes for Business Tool enabled businesses at Southwark to try out a pool bike system for 6 months without charge, with the option of continuing it at their own expense at the end of the period. As well as providing suitable bicycles, the scheme gave advice on safety and insurance issues, and included free maintenance. This was partly funded by Transport for London. For more details see http://www.southwark.gov.uk/BusinessCentre/bikesforbusiness.html. This scheme ran during 2006.

In autumn 2007 a "Bike Fest" was organised in Bankside. This involved making available a range of services to local employees including offering lunchtime cycle mechanic sessions to individual businesses (8 in total), after work rides, help with setting up cycle buddying, and also 4 public Dr Bike (free minor cycle repairs) sessions. Cycle repair (Dr Bike) sessions were also organised during European Mobility Week in Camberwell.

Combining solutions

Travel Information Tool
This involves creating a tailor made map with link to a whole range if local transport information sources. This includes cycle and car parking and key local facilities. For more details, for Bankside see:

http://www.betterbankside.co.uk/map/index.php;

http://www.betterbankside.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=53&Itemid=205).

For similar information but for Camberwell, see http://www.camberwellrenewal.org.uk/camb_map/.

For a report on the implementation of this tool click here.

Events tool
This involves working with individual businesses to create a package of different activities, e.g. health checks, travel information promotions, travel diary feedback sessions and guided walks. For more information click here.

Master Travel Plan in Bankside
In Bankside, a Master Travel Plan to act as a framework for individual organisations’ own travel plans. Key targets are to increase by 50% by 2010:

• the share of people who walk to work, amongst those who live within a 2 mile radius.
• the share of people who cycle to work, amongst those who live within a 5 mile radius.
• the number of work related journeys made to locations within London on foot (2005: 20%)
• the number of work related journey made to locations within London by bicycle (2005: 3%)

The Master Travel Plan won an award from TfL in 2007.

Mobility management process

Project organisation 
The responsibility for the running of the project rested with Southwark Council, meeting monthly with the contractors (SEA, UoW and UoL). Representatives of Transport for London and SELTRANS were also invited bi-monthly.

Bankside. Regular meetings were held between the OPTIMUM² team and the Better Bankside Business Liaison Manager, who reported to the Better Bankside Board. A Local Travel Plan Group (LTPG) was formed in Bankside in order to try to achieve economies of scale and critical mass between and within the employers in the area who were interested in travel planning. This LTPG will continue to meet under the auspices of Better Bankside, after the formal end of the OPTIMUM² project. To leran more about setting up an effective LTPG, click here.

Camberwell. Regular meetings were held with the with King College Hospital Stakeholder Relations Manager and with the Camberwell Renewal Partnership. In addition, a transport event (the Transport Summit) was held in summer of 2007 to raise the profile of transport in the area, and to understand what local people and businesses wanted to be improved.

As the Southwark project was guided by the wishes of the LTPG members, there was no fixed project plan. The creation of the Better Bankside Group was delayed by a longer than expected consultation period and it was decided to set up the Camberwell group later than originally anticipated to enable lessons from the Better Bankside Group to be transferred. The Bikes for Business Tool was developed prior to the groups, but included members in the rollout of the tool.

Over the 4 year period of OPTIMUM², the project spent £940,000 from OPTIMUM² itself, plus a further £120,000 from TfL and additional £40,000 from Section 106 planning obligations.

Barriers to the travel plan process
Central London has generally high levels of workers already commuting by sustainable means (around 85%), but still high levels of congestion. It has been a challenge to develop strategies to encourage walking and cycling and promote (off peak) use of public transport in this environment. The focus therefore has been on improving the local environment for walking and improving local facilities for cycling.

There is an issue of keeping businesses in Bankside interested in mobility management (and getting the generally much smaller businesses in Camberwell interested to begin with) when transport problems lie outside their immediate control, and where the degree to which transport is perceived to be a business problem varies widely. To this end, meetings of the Local Travel Plan Group were very carefully designed in order to stimulate interest, keep discussion focused on specific topics, and used as a mechanism to get business input to transport decision-making.

There are currently a number of different types of local travel plan groups being trialled around London. It was useful to exchange ideas, particularly on how to engage businesses; and the groups within OPTIMUM² in Southwark were regarded as leaders in the field.

Champions in the travel plan process
The most significant champion was Giles Semper, of Better Bankside, for reasons outlined earlier. In addition, the use of external bodies, such as Southwark Sustainable Energy (SEA) and University of Westminster, allowed more flexible approaches to be used than would have been the case if the Council had been acting on its own in the project.

Marketing and communication

This was a very important part of the project, particularly as a key focus was to nurture contacts with local businesses in the two areas of Southwark where LTPGs were set up, and so many innovative methods were used. These included:

• www.walk2go.com;
• Bike events with specific themes;
• Selling bikes for business;
• Transport Summit;
• Special breakfasts, lunches and dinners targeted at different groups such as businesses and local politicians;
• Emails to staff;
• Maps in brochures for local community events;
• Posters and flyers;
• Postcards. Example: To promote the travel information pages it was decided to promote this to commuters by handing out ‘freebies’ at the morning rush hour. An eye-catching postcard was designed (see Figure 2) and fair-trade chocolate bars purchased. The hand-out was held on the morning of Wednesday September 20th 2006, 16 people stood at six key locations around Bankside handing out chocolate bars and postcards to commuters. To encourage people to keep the postcard and go to the website a prize draw was advertised on the website and people were required to complete a simple monitoring form including a question which required looking at the map to enter the competition. The promotion of the travel information was very successful, the chocolate bars were very popular and the quality of the postcard and the fact that it promoted a competition meant very few discarded postcards were found after the hand out. Following this event remaining postcards were left in local shops and cafés around Bankside.

For detailed information, see the marketing and communication strategy of the Southwark pilot.

Contact 

Would you like to know more about mobility management at Southwark?

The Southwark trial project involves 4 key organisations:

The London Borough of Southwark is the leading organisation
Contact: Diana Bunyan
Email: diana.bunyan@southwark.gov.uk

Sustainable Energy Action are developing the six mobility management tools
Contact: Helen Pearce
Email: HelenP@sustainable-energy.org.uk

The University of Westminster will be setting up the Local Travel Plan Groups
Contact: Sophie Tyler
Email: S.Tyler@westminster.ac.uk

Loughborough University will research experiences elsewhere with travel groups and networks and how LTPGs can be integrated into policy frameworks
Contact: Marcus Enoch
Email: m.p.enoch@lboro.ac.uk 

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