Environment Audit CommitteeSupplementary written evidence submitted by Merseytravel

Below are some case studies from projects that are current or have operated in the past in Merseyside.

Scooter Commuter Case Study Wirral NTT

Alan contacted the Travel Team through his local Job Centre. He had been offered a position over on Wavertree Technology Park in Liverpool. The position was full time and permanent. He desperately wanted to take the job but he was worried about how long the journey would take and what the travel costs would be each week.

Alan was given a personalised journey plan from his home address to his place of work; to enable us to do this we took his home and work postcode and work times. From this we were able to tell him about the journey and how long it would take him to get there. The journey would take him 59 minutes; it involved walking, a rail journey and one bus, this journey would cost him 65.10 per month for a Trio 2 area bus pass.

Due to the length of the journey Alan was eligible to apply for the WorkWise Scooter Scheme, which would enable him to have the loan of a scooter for 6 months, receive all the relevant training, protective clothing and cost of the licence if required. By offering this service to Alan he was able to accept the job and have the peace of mind that he could get back and to from work each day.

Wheels to Work Case Study Sefton

When Sefton@Work asked the Sefton Travel Team to assist four clients who had been offered a work trial in Kirkby, they knew it would be a challenge given the location of the employer and public transport provision between Bootle and Kirkby, particularly when it was discovered they were required to be at work for 8am. Due to the nature of the work, there was no flexibility with start times.

On researching the transport options, it became apparent that the location was not served directly by any buses. It was also some distance from Kirkby station. However, it was noted that the clients could cycle to Kirkdale station, take the train to Kirkby, and then cycle to their place of work. The overall journey time for this would be 40 minutes.

This suggestion was presented to the clients who were less than enthusiastic with the suggestion. It had been some time since each had cycled, and they were not convinced that they would be able to manage the route. Given their reluctance, a travel officer offered to take all four individuals on the route the day before the work trial, to demonstrate how quick and easy it would be. 1 client insisted he would prefer to walk from Kirkby station, but three very wary and nervous cyclists joined him on the route to their prospective new place of work.

The travel officer provided some basic travel training along the route, and despite some particularly wet weather, all returned tired but enthusiastic and surprised that the cycle route had been so easy.

The officer met all four cyclists again on the morning of their work trial to accompany them on the route, and all arrived safely and were particularly impressed that they had enough time for a bacon butty before starting work. All four clients were all offered permanent positions.

Free Travel Pass Case Study

Michael rang me. He had got himself a job in the Whitechapel Centre. It’s about two miles out of town and it caters for homeless people. They’ve taken on these support workers in order to accommodate that and they’re working from about eight o’clock at night to eight o’clock the next morning.

Michael found out that we did these travel passes and he contacted me and asked whether he could come down and get one. Obviously I did the check and everything and he was fine. This must have been the Wednesday or the Thursday by the time he realised that we were there in operation and he lived in Liverpool 11 which is about eight miles from where he was working. He’d been walking in and back again. Sixteen miles a day and the weather was freezing!

He had to come out two hours before his start time and walk in that freezing cold weather, then do a twelve hour shift and after doing the twelve hour shift a two hour walk back home again because he didn’t have the fare. He was saying, “I can’t praise this enough, it’s a life-saver”.

Personalised Journey Plans Case Study

We worked with youngsters and I was quite surprised. We said we are going to go through to the IT suite and do some journey planning and stuff like that and they were all sort of, “Oh yeah we know what we’re doing, we know all this already”.

We couldn’t believe it when got them on the journey planner, we gave them sort of scenarios—You’ve got to be at MBNA Bank on the other side of Chester at eight o’clock in the morning and this, that and the other ... And they were doing them and they were getting to the bus stop at five to eight! We said to them, “But have you worked out just how far you’ve got to travel there and where you’ve got to walk to?”

And it was all these sort of time-management issues that came up. People just don’t realise about the planning process to get you there on time, things you’ve got to think about what might happen you know and it was quite good.

A People-Centred Holistic Approach

We had a lady who started seeing us about twelve months ago. She had been made redundant a couple of week previous and was just looking for jobs. She was a single mum, two kids, mortgage and all of that and within that month she was struggling to get to interviews because she had nothing coming back in. She had job search after job search.

We had the money from Starting Point to send her to interviews and training and the more we saw her, because I’d say we saw her probably once a month, the more desperate she was becoming. The more anxious and in financial danger she was becoming. She expressed it because we built up, as you do, you build up a relationship, we knew that her mortgage was in jeopardy, her house was ready to be repossessed and she kept plugging away and plugging away.

I think the job she actually got, she had four interviews, one in St Helens, one in Liverpool, one in Lancaster and one in Preston. We totted it up, it was something like £45 travel which she just couldn’t have afforded, no way, especially with trying to pay something towards her mortgage, bring up two kids and live, no chance!

Finally she found a job, we provided her with a pass which she admitted at the time there was no way she could have afforded, especially the job she was doing. Not only did she need to get into work, as part of her duties she needed to travel around the borough. So even if she’d have got a daily saver, which is £4.20 a day, that’s £22 a week. And just the saving of that £80 a month meant she could start paying early towards back payments to her mortgage.

We saw her a couple of weeks ago and she’s a completely different woman. She’s independent again, she’s got some financial worries but she knows that they’re in hand; there is a means to pay them off. She’s left us a couple of cards and a couple of bottles of wine as thank you.

29 January 2013