Want a guaranteed seat to work? Want it to be a low-emissions option? There are a stack of reasons to ride to work but you’ve just got to give it a go – at least once.
National Ride to Work Day is the perfect excuse to take your bike out of the garage. Last year Telstra won the ‘Ultimate Participation Challenge’ in the National Ride to Work Day.
Telstra has senior management commitment to this initiative with David Moffat, Group Managing Director, Telstra Consumer Marketing and Channels throwing his support behind the effort. In fact David has been quoted in the “The Cycle-Friendly Workplace” (www.bv.com.au) recently published by the Federal Government where he shares his passion for cycling.
The results from the Ride2Work post event report (www.bv.com.au) from last year’s event confirmed the behaviour change impact of the event.
Key results were:
- 29% of new riders (those riding to work for the first time in the lead-up or on National Ride to Work Day 2007) were still riding to work five months later
- 41% of those who rode for the first time in the lead-up to the event rode to work in the survey week five months later
- 27% of those who rode to work for the first time on the event day rode to work in the survey week five months later
- 87% of new riders reported that the event had a positive impact on their readiness to ride to work with 42% of new riders indicating that the event had influenced their decision to ride to work
You don’t have to be a newbie to take part in Ride2Work Day. Existing cyclists should consider signing up. Why bother? It will help boost numbers to build the case for improving infrastructure and services across the country.
The take-home? Whether you are a cyclist or not, get active and promote Ride2Work day in your office!
Survey:
Further information:
At Telstra, we asked cyclists what they thought of Ride2Work Day in 2007. And here are the results:
- You’ll save money: 60% of survey participants were substituting bikes for public transport. Based on riding 3 times a week the following typical annual train savings per person: Melbourne - $794 (based on Zone 1, daily*5 ticket costs); Sydney - $1267 (daily return Parramatta to Town Hall) $533 (based on flexi-pass reduced office days – comparison doesn’t include weekend days either side); Brisbane - $777 (Zone 2 daily rate); and Adelaide - $777 (two singles per day on a multi-pass)
- Health/Exercise is one reason for cycling for almost everyone, with financial savings and the efficiency of commuting by bike the two other key categories.
- Reasons preventing cycling both for cyclists and non-cyclists are the personal facilities at work, traffic/safety and the weather.
- Based on 140 survey participants, the 10 people who substitute cycling for car travel only (as opposed to car and public transport combination) saved 7.5 tonnes of CO2e annually by riding to work. This is equivalent to taking more than one car of the road for a year (1 car = 6 tonnes).
- When the total kms cycled across the survey group were normalised over a year, Telstra’s cyclists travelled a whopping 390,000 km! – and this was only from the efforts of the survey participants. Well done Team Telstra!
Even in Telstra’s Green Office survey last year, we had a handful of comments about the importance of cycling and how this should be part of that program.
If you are Telstra employee and want to get involved in Ride2Work - please check out our intranet site (search for Health, Safety and Environment - Current Promotions).
Want to know why cycling is good for business? Reduce pressure on parking, reduce absenteeism and improve financial returns. Let me expand on the last one. The types of financial benefits can you expect are:
- Reduced car park overheads and more economic use of land. A cost of a single space in an A-Grade CBD office building is between $8000 and $10,000 per annum and 10 bicycles can be parked in one car space.
- Reduced car fleet, taxi and petrol card costs
- No congestion charges: car parking levies are now in place in Melbourne and Sydney with annual fees of around $800 per space
- Healthier and happier staff are more productive at work and less likely to take sick days
- Increased connectivity in the workplace through strong cycle-friendly culture.
These last two play out as increased staff productivity.
For information on how to make your work place cycle-friendly, take a look at the national publication - The Cycle-Friendly Workplace (www.bv.com.au). See a quote from David Moffat, Telstra’s Group Managing Director, Consumer Marketing and Channels and his passion for cycling as well his commitment through Project Hope (www.davidmoffatt.com.au).
See the National Ride2Work post event report (www.bv.com.au) for facts and figures about last year’s event.