June 22nd 2017

Derby City Council’s sustainable travel programme Connected scooped two prestigious awards at the Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation‘s (CIHT) annual awards event in recognition of outstanding achievements and best practice.

At the London event, the Derby Connected Travel Advice Service received both the Sustainable Transport Award and a brand new ‘CIHT Award’.  This is the first project to be awarded the prestigious CIHT Award, presented to the winning submission who best demonstrated the Institution’s vision of ‘World Class transportation infrastructure and services’.

The Travel Advice Service engaged with over 250 local businesses to support them with the process of influencing the travel choices made by their staff.  It was a key component of the city’s wider Connected programme, funded  by  the Department for Transport’s Local Sustainable Transport Fund, which sought to keep Derby moving and encourage more people to walk, cycle, car share, use public transport, or reduce their need to travel.

A key strength of the project was the offer of tailored support in exchange for businesses making a commitment to undertake staff travel surveys and implement travel action plans.  In the final year in-depth evaluation of travel data for ten Connected workplaces indicated an average reduction in single occupancy car use of six percentage points.

Sue Percy, Chief Executive CIHT said: “The innovation shown by the team behind this entry in making a difference to the challenging problem of modal shift was clearly demonstrated and we congratulate them for providing such a good example of best practice to the industry.” 

Councillor Asaf Afzal, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods & Public Protection said: “These awards are testament to the hard work of our Travel Advice Service, and the aims of our wider Connected sustainable travel programme.  It is so encouraging to see that so many local businesses made it their priority and gave their commitment to encourage travel behaviour change in a bid to keep Derby moving and improve the quality of air around us.”