Sustainable Travel to Hospitals and Health Centres in Greater Manchester
About this good practice
TfGM has always had an ambition to improve sustainable journey options and travel information to key trip generators like the health and education sector and for high profile events.
During the initial stages of COVID-19 we were informed via partners and stakeholders that hospital staff were struggling to get to work because of the reduction of sustainable options available (reduced supply) and would need assistance to get to work and also on where to go to get up to date travel information to enable the journey. The positive feedback we received gave the Customer function at TfGM the impetuous to continue this work and explore how it could be improved.
It became apparent that confidence in public transport had dropped due to COVID-19 safety concerns – this was also a challenge in order to restore confidence for hospital trips – but also in order to increase confidence in the longer term in order to reach the targets set in the 2040 strategy.
The vaccination rollout earlier in 2021 brought forward another challenge – How to safely transport citizens on sustainable transport to be able to get vaccinated, using Demand responsive modes and also updating customer information on our own channels and partner channels to enable the journey.
Resources needed
2 Customer Information Managers worked on this project for 4 weeks in total in the beginning to set up the work programme and deliver the outcomes. The project then just need minor alterations when certain data sets changed or if there were further changes to the public transport operation.
Evidence of success
500,000 citizens accessed travel information to assist their journeys to vaccination clinics demonstrating there is an opportunity to enable sustainable travel and grow demand sustainably without the need and use for a private car.
Demand responsive transport grew from 2% to 11% during April 2020 and July 2020
Potential for learning or transfer
We believe that improving confidence in public transport and sustainable journeys will increase how many citizens use these services for the majority of journeys – Customer Information will be the enabler for the citizen to make a more informed journey..
Stakeholder engagement is critical to the success of this objective – One has to align activities with stakeholder and partner objectives.
Further information
Good practice owner
You can contact the good practice owner below for more detailed information.
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