Sustrans Scotland's Workplaces team at the Scottish Transport Awards
Sustrans Scotland have been recognised for their work in encouraging people to travel more actively to work at the Scottish Transport Awards, after its national Scottish Workplace Journey Challenge was awarded the Best Practice in Travel to School and Work Schemes prize.
Funded by Transport Scotland, the free, month-long Challenge helps to inspire people to travel in ways that benefit their health, well-being and the environment.
Each year, workplaces from across the country compete against each other to see who was able to clock up the most walking, cycling, public transport and car-sharing journeys between 1 – 31 March, in a bid to win more than £2,000 worth of prizes.
In 2018, nearly 4,000 people from across 300 organisations took part in the challenge, together logging over 55,000 journeys and saving more than £62,000. This year even saw the challenge’s first journeys by Kayak!
Sustrans Scotland Workplaces Co-ordinator Kirsty Rankin said:
“We are thrilled to have been recognised for this award.
“The success of this project rests on the great partnership and involvement of hundreds of workplaces across Scotland. We know that people who travel actively to work are fitter, healthier, happier and less likely to take sick days. By encouraging people to make small changes to the way they get to work, we hope it will inspire them to make sustainable, long-term changes to the way they travel.”
Staff from the investment managers Baillie Gifford, Scottish Wildlife Trust and Glasgow City Council were just two of the workplaces who backed the Challenge by signing up to travel actively to work during March.
Participants used an online platform to log their sustainable journeys and competed to climb a leader board. They had access to feedback on how many calories they had burned and the amount of money they had saved on each journey by choosing healthy, green and cheap alternatives to driving.
Individual challengers were also judged on the number of journeys they completed while workplaces were judged on the overall rate of participation in the team.
Now in its 16th year, the prestigious Scottish Transport Awards 2018 brings together the transport community to recognise and celebrate industry achievements across Scotland.
The Best Practice in Travel to School and Work Schemes award recognises projects which demonstrate developments in school and work transport schemes and which have delivered modal shift or improved safety.