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Business Engagement – Finding that ‘Hook’ for Travel Demand Management

I had the privilege of being part of the London 2012 Travel Advice to Business Consultancy Panel. This was part of the Travel Demand Management (TDM) programme where we provided one to one support to businesses to help them to manage staff and visitor travel during the Olympic and Paralympic Games. This business engagement was by no means an easy task, but we did have a fantastic TDM stimulus in the form of the UK’s largest ever event!

After we had celebrated the London 2012 TDM successes, I had a short breathing space before being immersed into Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF) driven travel behavioural change business engagement on behalf of a number of Local Authorities. This time there was no universal London 2012 hook/ trigger to get businesses on board. The trick to successful engagement has been identifying business specific hooks which trigger buy in. I can’t provide empirical evidence on hooks and hooks are not mutually exclusive, but my judgement on the balance of hooks is as follows: 


  
*Variety of hooks – ‘because we might as well take advantage of LSTF funds’, ‘our Head Office has a car share scheme’, ‘we want our staff to get fitter and healthier’.

So my advice to LSTF business engagers is to identify and play upon the hook(s) which excites your target business. You can then cast your line in the form of effective travel planning measures and pull in your mode shift catch!

Rachel is a Senior Managing Consultant at Atkins. She has recently taken the role of Chair of CILT’s Travel Demand Management (formerly Travel Planning) Forum and looks forward to sharing her business engagement experiences.

 

Rachel Evans CMILT

Senior Managing Consultant, Atkins