Using the travel survey
Running a travel survey is a good way of finding out how staff currently travel to work, and what barriers are stopping your staff from travelling sustainably and actively. It is also a good way of gaining evidence to support the introduction of measures that can enable staff to make smarter travel choices.
When to do a travel survey?
As your business and staff is likely to change over time, we recommend that a travel survey is conducted every year. We also recommend that you complete the travel survey at the same time of year to ensure you are collecting comparable travel data. From our experience, September is a good time to conduct a travel survey.
How to access the free Travel Devon survey
The Travel Devon Toolkit website offers a free and ready to use travel survey tool. Follow the steps below to get started:
- Register your business on the Travel Devon Toolkit; All businesses in Devon can use the Travel Devon Toolkit for free, and have exclusive access to travel planning tools.
- Use our Travel Survey Tool to generate a unique weblink which can then be emailed to your employees. When your employees open the weblink, it will automatically take them to the online survey for your organisation.
- Download the results: Once your employees have completed the survey, the results will be stored securely. You can then download the raw data or download a summary report with the key findings. To ensure you comply with GDPR you can download a guide on the national government website.
For more detailed instructions on how to use the Travel Survey Tool, please read our Business User Guide.
Circulating the survey to staff
There are many ways to circulate and promote the survey to staff:
- Send round an initial email to staff with the link to the survey, an explanation of why they should do the survey, and its importance to the business. We have provided an email template below. Sending your email out by or on behalf of senior management might help you increase staff engagement.
- Have line managers mention the survey in team meetings and ask them to emphasise the importance of filling out the survey
- Send out a reminder email
- Put up posters on noticeboards/in reception/in toilets
- Consider offering a prize draw to encourage participation, with a winner selected at random from survey respondents
Template Email
Subject: Complete our online Travel Survey & WIN!
Why is it important for [name of business]?
The survey will help us improve travel options to our site, reduce the environmental impact of our business practices, and contribute to maintaining and improving staff welfare.
That’s why we would like everyone to complete an online travel survey. We will use the information obtained from the questionnaire to identify what we could do to improve travel options to our site.
What is the survey for?
The survey results will be used to find out how everyone at [NAME BUSINESS] travels to work and to see whether any extra support is needed.
How can I take part and what can I win?
Please take ten minutes to complete the travel questionnaire by clicking on the link below:
[Include the unique URL generated on the Travel Devon Toolkit]
Please complete the travel questionnaire before [date] to be entered into a prize draw for [prize]. All data entered via this process will be used only for the purposes of supporting our staff to travel to our site and will be saved automatically on completion of the form.
Thank you for your support.
Further information and support
You can find more detailed instructions on how to use the travel survey tool in our Business User Guide. If you experience any technical problems, please contact us at traveldevon@devon.gov.uk.
Want to encourage smarter travel to work at your workplace? Devon County Council can offer support* to organisations who want to enable their staff to travel more sustainably and actively. Please get in touch via traveldevon@devon.gov.uk for more information.
*Support offered will depend on availability of funding and engagement and commitment of your workplace.
This page was last updated February 2023.
URLs
- National government GDPR guide: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation
