Employers are increasingly taking an interest in promoting safe commuting habits in their employees to their workplace.
And seeing as the majority of employees drive their cars to work, there is an enormous role employers can play to ensure they arrive safely.
But this is not always an easy task to achieve – barriers to behaviour change in employees include a lack of awareness of travel alternatives to driving, negative perceptions towards them or habitual driving, as well as more objective issues such as availability of public transport services and bicycle access (Socialdata, 2000).
This is where the Department of Transportation’s TravelSmart Workplace program steps in. Its aim is to reduce car commuting through employer-based travel planning.
Workplace travel plans are an important tool to engage employers in promoting sustainable travel choices. By May 2007 the program had supported 22 employers with 36 workplaces and a total of 18,000 employees to prepare travel plans.
Some practical tips for employers include:
- Weekly staff meetings – include road safety topics on the agenda to keep safety on the forefront of employee’s minds, and hold discussions on how stress can be increased through road congestion and other driving hazards
- Put up road safety information on staff bulletin boards
- Encourage staff to walk, cycle or use public transit to get to work – ways to make this easier include installing bike racks at your business, providing showers and lockers and promoting incentives for using public transit or walking or cycling to work
- Establish a carpool register to link up employees interested in sharing a ride home or for business
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