South Gloucestershire Council

Published: 08/07/2015

Major employers in South Gloucestershire are topping the leaderboard in this years’ regional commuter challenge.

Aviva, Atkins, GKN Aerospace Filton, and the University of the West of England are all placed in the top five of the 1001+ employee category. The annual competition runs throughout June and July with the aim to reduce congestion in the area by encouraging fewer single occupied car journeys to work.

Although employers are categorized by size, employees can still gain recognition individually. One individual employee going much more than the extra mile is Craig Badcock, from Aviva. Craig clocked up 165 miles commuting from his Exeter based office to the local office at Stoke Gifford business park and back again the following day.

Craig, Portfolio Manager at Aviva, said: “My home is in Sidmouth, Devon and whenever I am working in the Exeter office I try and commute on my bike – a round trip of around 30 miles. I also regularly visit our Aviva office in Stoke Gifford where I am aware of the thriving cycling community and promotion of commuting to work. I took this literally and decided to support the idea by swapping the car and the M5 for my bike and ‘A’ roads.”

Verity Heal, Local Sustainable Transport Fund Project Manager, added: “It is good to see growing enthusiasm from businesses of all sizes across the area to reduce congestion by switching to sustainable travel. The prizes and rewards for the competition are based on the percentage of participation in the challenge and the number of car journeys replaced, rather than distances travelled, which make the efforts demonstrated by individuals such as Craig Badcock from Aviva all the more inspiring.”

Now in its second year, the competition builds on the success of previous jambusting challenges. The leading businesses will be recognised at the Travelwest Business Travel Awards in November.

It is not too late for organisations who would still like to take part. Incentives for July include an offer providing a 25 per cent discount for participants trying the bus and who purchase a weekly bus ticket.  Details of all incentives and how to log every single journey made by walking, cycling, public transport, car sharing, or working from home instead of taking a car alone can be found on the competition website www.travelwest.info/bigcommutingchallenge