Site access problems
Site access problems can impact businesses and hospitals in a number of ways.
First, traffic congestion both on and off-site can increase the direct costs to an organisation through delays. Thus the time lost affects deliveries both to and from the site, trips made in the course of work, and commuting trips to and from work. For hospitals, delays (and particularly the uncertainty of how severe these will be) also affect the time spent by visitors, and potentially more seriously patients admitted for treatment by ambulance.
A second issue sometimes related to congestion concerns the availability of parking. Broadly, poorly managed parking facilities can result in vehicles cruising around seeking somewhere to park. In extreme cases, drivers will park in places that are inappropriate either because they interfere with other road users or because they are unsafe. For examples of strategies to cope with parking problems, see parking management.
Poor quality or non-existent walk and cycle facilities meanwhile often mean that relatively few people attempt to 'travel green' because it feels too difficult, unpleasant and dangerous to do so. Such cases are particularly common at recently developed hospitals and business areas that are designed to favour the car user and are consequently located at edge-of-town sites. To learn more about strategies to encourage walking and cycling, see promoting walking and/or promoting cycling.
Similarly, these (mostly new) sites suffer from poor public transport alternatives that once more compel people to take the car to their destination, due in large part to the difficulty and high cost of providing such services in these car-dependent low density areas. To learn more about strategies to improve public transport, see buses and other public improvements and/or encouraging pooling.
Overall then, access problems can be significant to an organisation. In particular they directly impose financial costs through delays. In addition they can be damaging to an organisation's image at a local level - through congestion, off-site parking, air and noise pollution etc. Less directly, access problems also affect the ability of organisations to recruit and retain staff, and can put off customers, suppliers and others from visiting an affected site.
If you have any of these problems, click on 'solutions' in the menu or one of the hyperlinks. |
