Reducing the need to travel
Reducing the need to travel and how it can contribute to mobility management
Reducing the need to travel can be a very effective instrument to reduce mobility and may be applied to various target groups. On the one hand we have site visitors, such as business visitors, suppliers and patients (in the case of hospitals), on the other hand we have employees who travel to their work. Reducing the need to travel helps to avoid parking problems and site access problems as well as contributing to an eco and community friendly image and – very important – is often highly valuated by both clients and employees since it offers more flexibility and saves time and efforts.
Reducing the the need to travel for clients or patients requires a reorganisation of the primary business process and is often referred to as Business Process Reengineering (BPR). Reducing the need to travel with regard to employees is often referred to as teleworking or e-working. Teleworking has not been part of OPTIMUM², though some general findings regarding teleworking will be addressed here.
More information is available (Dutch and English) at the site of the Dutch Telework Foundation. The foundation aims to stimulate e-working in the Netherlands by promoting all benefits to a variety of groups: employers, employees, governments and other stakeholders like employers-associations and trade unions. Work Wise is the equivalent organisation, which promotes flexible working practices in UK workplaces.
When should you consider reducing the need to travel?
To reduce the need to travel is either problem driven or opportunity driven. The underlying problem might be:
- lack of working space or parking space;
- poor accessibility (congestion, lack of car alternatives);
- physically impaired visitors/employees.
Yet even more important, reducing the need to travel may offer major advantages:
- a higher service level is provided for clients;
- employees are offered more flexibility and ways to achieve a better work / life balance, which means a a direct link with recruitment and retention.
However, a precondition is that the service provided i.e. activities are not (at least to some extent) time and/or location specific.
What can reducing the need to travel achieve?
In OPTIMUM² BPR was successfully applied to a number of ‘care protocols’ within Gelre Hospitals, resulting in a 39% decrease of trips on average. For more information click here.
At the site of the Dutch Telework Foundation 6 cases of teleworking in major companies have been outlined, regarding costs, motivations and results. Common advantages that were mentioned are:
- reduction of mobility / travel time;
- flexibility and job satisfaction;
- reduction of absence due to illness;
- increase in productivity (5-10% increase of productivity was measured).
For detailed information (in Dutch) on these 6 cases, click here.
How do I implement reducing the need to travel and what will it cost me?
Reducing the need to travel is in most cases not motivated by mobility problems. The reduction of mobility is often seen as a nice side effect.
In the case of BPR it involves a change of the primary business, with major consequences for the whole organisation. In the freight transport sector - in which transport costs amount up to 20% of the total costs - it is very common. In passenger transport, however, the advantages of a better service for the client and increase of efficiency should be emphasized.
Something similar applies to teleworking, whereas lack of space, an increase in productivity and flexibility is often the motivation for teleworking, rather then mobility problems.
It is difficult to estimate the costs of reducing the need to travel. The direct costs are linked to technical solutions and are often limited. The reengineering of the business process or the work process is far more complicated.
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