Green travel

Travel survey

The University of Plymouth is updating its travel plan, and you could be our lucky winner. Have your say by completing the annual travel survey. 

What is a travel plan? 

Simple! It helps us understand travel patterns to and from the main campus and other sites

Every student and member of staff are asked to complete the survey at: 

Staff link: https://southwest.itrace.org.uk/S349HY4.survey 

Student link: https://southwest.itrace.org.uk/S723NV0.survey

Why is the travel plan so important? 

Responses will be very important in helping us to assess our progress in meeting our travel plan objectives, and in setting new objectives to meet your travel needs.

How long will it take me to complete? 

The survey will take about ten minutes and will be open for four weeks. You do not need to login to iTRACE to complete the survey as it will happen automatically. However, you must complete the online survey in one sitting otherwise your answers will be lost as you cannot save a partially completed questionnaire and then return to complete it at a later date. 

The survey will be closed on 16 May 2019. 

Leave your email address in the survey to be entered into a prize draw to receive:

• One of two £50 Marks and Spencer’s vouchers 

Please be assured that all personal information will be properly safeguarded and processed in accordance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 (GDPR). 

If you have any queries at all or would like further information about the objectives of the University Travel Plan then please get in touch via sustainability@plymouth.ac.uk.

We will:

• Encourage staff and student commuting by walking, cycling, public transport and car sharing.
• Promote incentives to reduce the proportion of single occupancy car drivers for staff and students not living in University accommodation.
• Monitor and review business travel annually. 
• Work to reduce the need for business travel through video conferencing and other smarter working practices. 
• Reduce average business travel to below 0.28gCO2e per mile by 2020. 
• Monitor student and staff commuting emissions compared to a 2016-17 baseline of 641 KgCO2e per staff member, and 202 KgCO2e per student. 

Our performance:

• In 2016-17, 63 per cent of staff and 88 per cent of students travelled sustainably to campus (by walking, cycling or public transport).
  
• 22 per cent of staff and 56 per cent students commuted by walking in 2016-17, a 3 per cent and 9 per cent increase retrospectively from 2015-16.
  
• In 2016-17, 8 per cent of staff and 5 per cent of students cycled, an increase of 3 per cent from 2015-16. 
• The proportion of staff taking public transport to university increased by 2 per cent in 2016-17 to 33 per cent; however, students taking public transport decreased by 7 per cent in 2016-17. Potentially due to the increase in numbers walking and cycling. 
• 22 per cent of staff and 8 per cent of students travelled by car in 2016-17 decreasing by 7 per cent and 3 percent retrospectively from 2015-16. 
• From 2017, we will be reviewing and monitoring University business travel against a baseline of 0.28gCO2e per mile.
• We have started to gather data for video conferencing usage, over a 180 day period in 2017 there were 1,334 video conferencing calls and 2,842 in 2018.
  

How we're promoting green travel

Since our main campus is located in the city centre, and we have a student and staff population of nearly 30,000, travel and transport is an important issue – one that impacts the local residential community. We have targets to reduce the proportion of staff and students driving to university, increasing the proportion that cycles, walks and uses public transport. We support this with a strict parking policy on campus to fit with the city centre location. 

Cycling is a big success for us; 8 per cent of our staff commute to University by bike, beating the UK average of 2.8 per cent per cent of employee cyclists – very impressive given the Devon hills. To support cycling we offer 318 bicycle parking spaces on campus, which is an increase of 132 spaces since 2007. We offer the cycle to work scheme for access to new bikes and equipment as well as providing lockers for rent. We also have a Bicycle User Group (BUG), which is run by volunteering staff members to promote and campaign for cycling facilities on behalf of the staff.

We run regular cycling campaigns on campus for staff and students, including bike doctor workshops, led rides, cycle maintenance courses and the sale of second hand bikes. For more information on led rides, visit the UPSU MGA Social pages. Throughout the year we promote free workshops offered in the city by Bike Space, as well as running cycling events. Keep an eye on the University's What's On page. We also offer lockers for cyclists and access to showers within the gym for a small fee for the year, contact Recreation for more details.

In 2013, we opened the University of Plymouth Car Share group to students and staff through carsharedevon.com. This helps provide a more trusted lift share group with more participants. It's easy to use: register as a user; mark University of Plymouth as your employer; and then you can register your journey within the staff and student community to find a lift share. Registered car share drivers are given preferential treatment for car parking spaces over single occupancy car drivers on campus.