SafeWork SA’s principal office is located in the inner western suburbs of Adelaide.  They joined the ‘smarter travel @ work’ program in 2012 to investigate how they could reduce fleet costs and contribute to health and wellbeing outcomes for employees through promoting safer, greener and more active travel options to staff.

INITIAL TRAVEL PATTERNS: They conducted a staff travel survey in 2012 to identify current employee travel characteristics for both commute and work journeys and to identify initiatives which were likely to be of interest.  Around a third of responding staff indicated that they made short work journeys by taxi and expressed an interest in making such journeys by either public transport or cycling.  Four in five employees got to work by car, and a significant number of staff were interested in getting to work either by carpooling, public transport or cycling.

TAKING ACTION: Among the decisions that SafeWork SA took from the results of the survey was facilitating carpooling to their worksite (by joining Adelaide Carpool) and offering personal journey plans to staff to enable them to identify alternatives for their work commute.  They also encouraged work journeys to and from their CBD office by either public transport or cycling.  They used the results of their travel survey to receive a DPTI Community Grant, which enabled them to purchase Metrocards for work journeys and three workplace bikes.

The work bikes have, in a short time, already made over 250kms of work journeys, contributing to a more active and healthy workforce.  Employees are encouraged to use the bikes through internal staff newsletters, intranet articles and team meetings.  They developed a ‘Bicycles for Work Related Travel Guideline’ which requires employees to complete a competency assessment before using the work bikes.  Employees are also required to follow SafeWork SA’s Manual Tasks policy and procedures, and complete a trip register when using the bikes to record journeys made and distances travelled.

The MetroCards are available for all staff to use for work journeys, and savings made on taxi expenditure have been applied to recharging the MetroCards.  The person who oversees taxi use actively encourages their colleagues to use Metrocards with the support of the Executive.  SafeWork SA also distributed wall charts detailing the ease by which staff could make work journeys in and out of the CBD, and also promote the availability of the Metrocards and workplace bikes at events such as their annual Staff Wellbeing Day.

MEASURING ACHIEVEMENTS: SafeWork SA undertook a follow up survey in 2013, looking to identify what changes their initiatives had achieved.   Taxi voucher requests had dropped by 30% resulting in reduced expenditure on travel costs, and also provided efficiency gains through staff being able to read (such as work e-mails) while making public transport journeys.

Peter Williss, Principal Project Officer said “smarter travel @ work at SafeWork SA has been a great success and I would encourage other organisations to get involved.  Ensure you have a good support group such as Health and Safety representatives, an IT person and other enthusiastic people involved to keep the program interesting and working.  It is also good to include the social club staff to schedule activities around activities, such as the annual Staff Wellbeing Day.”