Travel Strategy Questionnaire

Survey

The questionnaire is here. The poll has now closed, though you are welcome to email me if you wish.

Analysis

The results of the questionnaire and your comments are here.

Senate and Council

Senate overwhelmingly approved my resolution, that Regulation 19(2) (the car parking regulations that allow for enforcement of car parking charges) be approved on condition that the per diem charge was pro-rata equivalent to the annual charge. I also asked for an assurance that there would be a substantive debate on the working of travel strategy (and implicitly the impact of car parking fees) at a future meeting of Senate.

Subsequently I had some discussion with the Registrar re the Council meeting. I asked that a report on the questionnaire be circulated to Council for information, and recommended to Council that:

1. For the time being, registered users should be charged during term time only.
2. Consideration be given to charges for part-time staff being based on actual basic salary and not full time equivalent salary.
3. The Transport Manager review the strategy and its implementation and present a report via the Estates Committee for wide discussion in the next committee cycle.

This was approved without dissent or discussion.

It is not practicable to propose anything more detailed now but I am sure that the campus trades unions, Transport Manager and other University officers will address the detailed comments you have made in your responses and that following the review we will end up with a better transport strategy.

So registered users will have parking charges from October, but only during term time, and the daily rate will be pro-rata to the annual rate. There will also be a car sharing scheme running by then.

Charges

The car parking charges of £150/£300 pa (approx 0.8% of average salary) are higher than most other UK universities eg:

Portsmouth (0.3%,0.5% reserved)
Surrey (£120 to £190)
East Anglia (0.3% of salary)
York (0.2% of salary)
Kent (£15 to £60 per year)
Birmingham (50p per day)

- see also a survey by the Association of University Administrators (excel html)

Acknowledgements

I used the excellent phpESP open source software to generate and analyse the questionnaire.

Jeremy Maris