Making Car Sharing and Car Clubs Work - Case ... - The Civil Service

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MAKING CAR SHARING AND CAR CLUBS WORKCASE STUDY SUMMARIESbelow, reveal that prior to the move a total of 9% of employees already car shared for workjourneying, while 12% indicated they were likely to choose this option after relocation. Singleoccupancy car use was due to drop from 62% to 56%. Of note, the move would also promptan increase in the proportion of those using bikes (from 8% to 11%), motor cycles (from 2%to 3%), and bus users (from 2% to 5%).3.9 The findings from this survey will be compared with an ‘after’ survey, due to take placeduring autumn 2004, which will reveal what, in practice, has been the effect of the travelmanagement measures introduced as a result of relocation.3.10 Overall, the effect of the scheme has been to encourage car park space sharing, rather thanvehicle sharing. A typical arrangement would be two drivers sharing one space, with eachentitled to use it, on average, two and a half days a week. On the non space days a driverwould use other means of transport, park and ride facilities, or not travel at all as they havecondensed their working week using flexitime arrangements. Those that do best out of thescheme are those in job share arrangements, who space share with their job share.Successes / Failures3.11 Key successes:Detailed and thorough consultation with staff and unions, which helped produce andrefine an acceptable and workable scheme.The development and successful implementation of the scheme in a large and diverseorganisation demonstrated good practice in change management. GCHQ intends touse the lessons learnt from this process in others areas of business management andits evolution.3.12 Teething problems:“GCHQ employs a lot of clever people whose job it is to find a way round seeminglyimpregnable systems. When some of them started applying their intellectualcapabilities to potential undermining of the rainbow parking system, cracks in thesystem became apparent. For example, there was a concern that frequent car usersmight ask a colleague who usually cycles to work to sign up with them for a yellowspace – sometimes as a favour, sometimes for a cash reward. The driver would havethe nominally shared space to themselves, while the cyclist continued to cycle –perhaps with a few extra quid in his pocket.” To address this problem the changemanagement team sought, and won, Cabinet Office approval to offer a one-offincentive payment for GCHQ staff to join – and stay in – the green parking allocationcategory. The payment is £400, based on the cost of a local bus season ticket, and istaxable.GCHQ purchased Jambusters software to help staff identify car share partners. Inpractice this worked well for matching those who live near each other, but was notsufficiently adaptable to enable drivers to identify potential partners on their route towork. Owing to the specialist nature of its staff GCHQ draws from a very widegeographical area. “We have people commuting to Cheltenham from Birmingham, evenNottingham.” GCHQ went back to the software designers and asked if they could refineFinal V1.1, Dec. 2004 - 16 -
MAKING CAR SHARING AND CAR CLUBS WORKCASE STUDY SUMMARIESthe programme accordingly. The response was positive, but will take time to developand implement (note: this function is available within the Jambusters software, and isawaiting deployment at GCHQ). In the interim, GCHQ used postcodes to plot the homelocations of staff, and introduced its own simple computerised lift matching servicebased on ‘nodes’. Those looking for car share partners enter the nodes (cities, towns,villages) they pass through or near en route to and from work, and the system identifiesothers who have entered at least one of the same nodes. This increases the chancesof finding potential sharers significantly. In addition to matching car sharers, the systemis also used by those seeking one-off lifts, e.g. those whose usual car share partner isunavailable due to illness, holidays, etc.The ‘gold bonus’ space allocation system has not been without its problems. Spacesare allocated on a first-come-first-served basis, and people could book them up to sixmonths in advance. It has proved very difficult to balance between the ‘hoarding’ ofspaces for ‘rainy-days’ with resultant empty spaces, and ‘panic-booking’ at the end ofperiods. To manage this, space allocations have been reduced for the remainder of theinterim period.The several hundred contractors employed by GCHQ were excluded from the interimrainbow parking allocation scheme, owing to space constraints and the need toencourage staff themselves to buy-in to the scheme. These are individuals who havespecialists skills, required on an ad hoc basis, and some have done work for theorganisation for over 20 years. They feel resentful that they were not consulted whenthey scheme was developed, and some feel they were not specifically advised aboutthe alternatives to parking on site that were evolving. In the event, however, a numberof the main contractor organisations have made their own arrangements, such aspurchasing parking at local hotels. Business has been judged as not having beendamaged, and the exclusion of contractors is to continue in the future RainbowScheme.Supporting Measures / Alternative Approaches Considered3.13 The following supporting measures have been introduced to encourage car/parking spacesharing among GCHQ staff:A guaranteed ride home in an emergency, covered by a contract with a local taxi firm(guidelines about using this facility have been draw up, and are available on the GCHQintranet site).Information to parents who drop children off at school en route to/from work of othercolleagues who use the same school(s), to enable lift sharing arrangements to beestablished.A car share newsgroup, to exchange information about the scheme, such as theavailability of ‘spare’ spaces.In addition to its support for car/parking space sharers, other measures to encouragealternatives to single occupancy car use have been put in place include:The appointment of ‘pathfinders’ (more below) to assist individuals to explore the rangeof options for commuting available to themFinal V1.1, Dec. 2004 - 17 -
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