Diary of a Travel and Community Co-ordinator

Diary of a Travel and Community Co-ordinator

Lynn Cramman

Cobalt Business Park in North Tyneside.

 

Monday

Cycle into work this morning and am relieved to make it into the office just before a huge down pour. Review the latest website use data for www.cobaltpark.co.uk - it's great that it's going so well. We're looking to use the website's popularity to encourage local businesses to advertise on it. The new travel matrix seems to be working well for people - by the number of hits on cycling and walking, you can tell that spring is on its way. The Cobalt Community pages and forums for employees are a great way for us to monitor what topics are attracting the most interest and how we can improve the services we offer. My colleague Amy and I get ready to have our photograph taken for marketing material - the photographer makes us laugh so it isn't as bad as we thought. The pictures will be used on buses that travel through the park, promoting our services to employees.

Tuesday

Make sure I have all the info I need and then cycle over to the park's marketing suite to give a presentation on our travel planning work to potential new occupiers. My colleague Amy and I get involved early in the lettings process, showcasing the personal travel planning and transport infrastructure that makes Cobalt easily accessible and an attractive place to work.

We already have 9,000 employees onsite. By working with new occupiers from the early stages of relocation, we are able to survey the staff and make sure that they are aware of the travel options available to them. Feedback has shown this a great way to influence a change in travel behaviour. Have a meeting with the Get Moving Steering Group which involves North Tyneside council, the PCT, Sustrans and local community centre to discuss a seasonal calendar of events and promotions. I'm especially looking forward to Beauty and the Bike which should encourage more girls to cycle to work. Looking forward to another session of our newly formed Cobalt netball club this evening which is a great opportunity to meet employees and have some fun away from the office. We've recently added netball to an ever growing list of Cobalt clubs that includes Tai Chi, five-a-side football, horse riding, and guided walks.

Wednesday

At lunchtime I head down to our latest completed building to celebrate the 1st birthday of our guided walk group. Cobalt is next to a biodiversity park, and it's great to see that people are enjoying exploring the surrounding countryside - warmer weather will attract more members. Spend a few hours this afternoon running a roadshow at a newly occupied office on-site. Amy and I are on hand for staff to ask any questions about travelling to work and hand out information on the range of activities and services on offer. We get some good feedback from people who have been following their personalised travel plans and are finding their commute much easier, and cheaper than they did previously.

Thursday

Attend a meeting to discuss the ACT TravelWise conference at The Sage Gateshead in November. We are looking forward to welcoming people to Newcastle, it's a fantastic city and I'm sure delegates will enjoy their stay here. Spoke to company developing the website for the Tyneside Travel Partnership and am pleased with progress. The site is due to go live in the next few weeks and it will be good to be able to direct new members, who are promoting their own travel, in the right direction.

Hop back on the bike and begin the ride home via Procter & Gamble to drop off tickets to staff who have ordered them through the website. Our online ticket buying service is getting more and more popular with employees able to save money and time by ordering their tickets through Amy and me.

Friday

Have separate quarterly meetings with local transport providers and the Tyne and Wear

Transport authority. Great to hear that the services serving Cobalt are doing well. We enjoy looking through photographs taken at the launch of our latest initiative, the Cobalt

Free Zone, which allows employees to switch between services operated by different companies for free. I've had some good customer feedback to share too.