Mobility management at Gelre Hospitals
|
| mode |
commuters (%) |
visitors (%) |
ambulant care (%) |
| car | 61 | 98 | 90 |
| bike | 35 | 1 | 4 |
| public transport | 2 | 1 | 2 |
|
other |
2 | 0 | 4 |
| total | 100 | 100 | 100 |
Juliana location (2004):
| mode |
commuters (%) |
visitors (%) |
ambulant care (%) |
| car | 56 | 98 | 90 |
| bike | 40 | 1 | 4 |
| public transport | 2 | 1 | 2 |
|
other |
2 | 0 | 4 |
| total | 100 | 100 | 100 |
See for more information (in Dutch): http://www.bereikbaarziekenhuis.nl
To gain permission from the city council for the merger of the Lukas en Juliana location, the hospital was required to write a mobility managenement plan. The hospital has committed itself to limit the available parking space to 840 spaces.
The Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports has appointed Gelre ziekenhuizen as one of the three "forefront hospitals". These hospitals have been invited to be pioneers in giving form and content to the innovations necessary to deal with future challenges. For Gelre ziekenhuizen, this means developing into a new-style hospital, which entails a limited clinical capacity, a shift from in-house to outpatient treatment, day treatment and short-stay admissions.
Due to the construction plans, the Province of Gelderland has asked for extra attention regarding the accessibility of the hospitals and for parking. Furthermore, the province is keen on transferring the experiences that have been gained within Gelre Hospitals to other hospitals in the province.
The local governemnt was only involved in the beginning to make sure that parking problems would be avoided in the surrounding neigbourhoods. Now that’s is clear that parking problems are not arising, the role of the local goverment is diminishing. Other key stakeholders are:
The accessibility of the hospitals is not determined by commuter traffic only. Outpatients and visitors also cause parking problems and traffic congestion on and around hospital grounds. Furthermore, as a result of mergers, there is a trend for hospitals to become large-scale organisations, usually located on the outskirts of cities. These hospitals are increasingly offering ambulatory care, allowing each to reduce its number of beds considerably.
This is also the case in Apeldoorn, where the existing Lukas location and Juliana location in 2007 will be concentrated at the Lukas location. It is feared that – without active measures -the expansion of the location and the increase of ambulatory care will cause major accessibility problems, all the more that is has been agreed to limit the available parking space.
Although the (draft) zoning scheme only puts restrictions on the number of parking spaces, Gelre Hospitals is firmly dedicated to decrease the number of trips to and fro the hospital. Accessability is seen as a key value for the hospital. Being a hospital it would be unacceptable if people would be obstructed from getting proper and timely care.
Good example of this attitude towards accessability is the fact that during the rebuilding of the Lukas location, during which a lots of construction traffic is needed, security has been brought in to make sure that all major acces roads are kept open.
At Gelre Hospital, they are convinced that visitors and patients have good reasons to arrive by car. Therefore the use of cars is facilitated. Nonetheless, other ways of transport are actively promoted in order to keep/reach (at least) the modal split of the Juliana location (45% bike share!) after Juliana and Lukas have merged at the Lukas location.
The centre of attention, however, is aimed at reducing and rearrange the number of trips to and fro the hospital by Business Process Reengineering. BPR implies the streamlining of care protocols and offers a number of advantages, such as:
1. customer friendly;
2. more efficient and thus cheaper;
3. less trips and thus better accessability.
The advantages have convinced the specialists in the hospital to rewrite certain clinical pathways in the course of 2006 and 2007 (Gelre Ambulant Care New Style). This process is still going on and new care trajects wil be added during 2007. The care trajects involved so far have realised a decrease of trips of 39% o average! Also experiments with the E-poli are going on, that offer care to patients at the GP by internet. The Lukas location and Juliana location offer different visiting hours, that will continue after the merger at the Lukas location, thus resulting in staggered visiting hours.
All efforts together aim at reducing peaktime trips by 30%, either by avoiding trips or inducing trips to off-peak hours.
A shuttle service was implemented in 2004 to transport employees between the different locations of Gelre Hospitals. It connects the three locations of the Gelre ziekenhuizen 13 times a day (two in Apeldoorn en one in Zutphen). Each employee is offered an employee card which enables them to make free use of the shuttle bus.
In 2004 a little over 10,000 passengers were drawn. In the first three months of 2005, patronage grew from 850 passengers in January to 1,000 in March (2,800 in total for the first three months). In 2006 the overall patronage amounted up to 14.000 passengers. In March 2005 a plastic, credit-card sized timetable was introduced. In 2005 as well as 2006 the user satisfaction of the shuttle bus was measured. The level of satisfaction appeared to be very high.
Nevertheless suggestions were made to increase the frequency of the service, which is under discussion now. Also we did a survey amongst potential users. The potential is still considerable. Grand target is to double patronage to 1,700 passengers a month (20.400/yr).
Right now, the shuttle service is (partly) subsidised by OPTIMUM². By imposing a stricter regime on travel allowances (part of the terms of employment) and increasing patronage the shuttle bus could be made self-supporting.
The implementation of the bicycle plan is still ongoing. Facilities such as a lockable shelter, shower and changing rooms) have been built and are available to the staff. The employee pass offers free access to all facilities.
Depending on finding enough financial means the Gelre Hospital thinks about rewarding cyclists, depending on the distance they cycle, that will be available through the PIT-pas in the future, each time they come to work by bike. This reward will probably be a tax free allowance as part of their present salary. This option is both financial interesting for staff and employer. Ultimately, a restrictive biking policy is conceivable: employees that live witin a range of 5 km from the hosptal are not allowed to park and instead are rewarded to bike. However, these plans are not (yet) supported by the managing directors.
In 2004 Gelre ziekenhuizen introduced regulated parking for all staff, visitors and patients, as well as paid parking for visitors and patients. Parking lots for visitors and staff are set apart. At the Lukas location the underground parking is meant for staff. Ever since 2001 car poolers are privileged to park close to the entrance of the hospital.
Presently, 300-400 construction vehicles are daily parked at the visitors parking lot due to the reconstruction of tye building. If the Juliana and Lukas location are merged, it is expected that some parking problems will arise, but this is hard to predict. A new parking roof for visitors is planned on top of the undergroud parking. Additionally, nurse flat may be replaced by 80 parking spaces.
At present, Gelre Hospitals has no major parking problems.
Mobility service desk
Through the mobility service desk company bikes and pool cars can be arranged. In the 3rd quarter of 2007 each reception is able to arrange meetings at that location that is most convenient for each participant and adapt meeting times to the time schedule of the shuttle bus.
Mobility Menu
The Mobility Menu is related to the terms of employment. Originally, a mobility budget was proposed for each employee, that could be applied to one’s own choice, see also http://www.euromobility.nl/mobiliteitsbudget.htm. However, the board of directors was strongly opposed and has disapproved of the mobility budget.
Cornel van de Haterd is the mobility manager for all Gelre locations. During OPTIMUM² Gelre hospitals was supported by the consultant Jan Bernninkmeijer. In the course of the project focus has changed due to advancing knowledge and political decisions, such as:
However, the mobility management process is in progress and will continue since the obligation to limit parking space to 840 (without any pressure on the neighbourhood) is set down in the zoning scheme and the province will see to this.
A demand-driven approach is considered highly important within Gelre Hospitals. For this purpose Gelre Hospitals is constantly running surveys with regard to its target groups, such as patients, staff, suppliers and visitors.
Furthermore, an overall communication plan has been written with regard to OPTIMUM² activities (see Communication plan Gelre Hospitals, in Dutch) and for each solution a marketing plan was set up:
Marketing Bicycles, in Dutch
Marketing Shuttle Bus, in Dutch
Marketing Service Point, in Dutch
Would you like to know more about Mobility Management at Gelre Hospitals?
Please contact: Cornel van de Haterd, mobility manager Gelre Hospitals (c.vdhaterd@gelre.nl)
