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Falkirk makes smarter choices in work travel with MVA Consultancy

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MVA Consultancy’s specialist Smarter Travel Directorate has been appointed to deliver a Personal Travel Planning (PTP) project as part of Falkirk Council’s ‘Take the Right Route’ scheme.

Funded by the Scottish Government’s Smarter Choices, Smarter Places programme, the PTP developed by MVA will promote a healthy and active lifestyle to 9,500 households across Larbert and Stenhousemuir.

The project aims to achieve a modal shift from car use to active and sustainable modes of travel, with particular focus on reducing single occupancy car journeys of less than five miles.

The Larbert and Stenhousemuir region was successfully selected by the Scottish Government as one of seven areas in which to pilot the Smarter Travel initiatives between 2009 and 2011.

Conrad Haigh, Director of Smarter Travel at MVA, said: “We are delighted to be working with Falkirk Council on such an exciting and ground-breaking project. MVA’s staff have had extensive experience in delivering PTP plans to numerous audiences and we are excited to be able to capitalise on the experience of our team and particularly our head of PTP, Sinead Flavin’s experience of PTP delivery in London.

“This new approach is much more than the standard door knocking process implemented by other PTP projects and the MVA methodology better utilises the basic principals of psychology upon which travel planning is built, to create a greater reinforcement of message which should lead to higher participation rates.

“We are confident that the project will be a great success and a seminal milestone in the delivery of PTP in Scotland and across the UK.”

Information for Editors:

Industry-leader MVA Consultancy provides advice on transport and other policy areas, to central, regional and local government, agencies, developers, operators and financiers

A diverse group of results-oriented people, we are part of a 500-strong team worldwide. Through client business planning, customer research and strategy development we create solutions that work for real people in the real world.

Smarter travel at MVA

MVA is one of the few consultancies to have a dedicated Smarter Travel Directorate with extensive experience in undertaking smarter choices projects and the development of travel planning measures. The team has been involved in a number of major PTP schemes including leading the roll out of PTP in London – the UK’s largest application of PTP to date.

Key team members

Conrad Haigh, Director of Smarter Travel at MVA Consultancy
Conrad heads up the Smarter Travel division at MVA and was last year recognised for his expertise and track record in the Smarter Travel field, scooping the Travel Planner of the Year award by ACT TravelWise.
With a specialist public sector knowledge and significant experience of devising strategies designed to create behavioural change in transport use, Conrad played an integral role in delivering a workplace travel planning programme across 33 London boroughs.
The Workplace Travel Plan programme obtained more than 1,400 travel plans – 400 of which were voluntary travel plans covering more than 10 per cent of the London workforce – half a million employees.

Sinead Flavin, head of PTP at MVA Consultancy
Sinead has delivered nine PTP projects reaching 240,000 households in the London boroughs of Sutton, Camden, Kingston, Bromley, Waltham Forest, Haringey and Wandsworth. She has also worked on Active Travel in Sydney.
As programme manager for UK’s largest PTP roll out in London from 2004 – 2008, she was responsible for developing a PTP strategy for London, programme managing the development and implementation of the PTP strategy in London, managing a supporting team and stakeholder liaison.
Sinead was also a member of the UK Department for Transport’s Making Personal Travel Planning Work steering group.

For further information please contact:

Emma O'Sullivan on 01483 742925
or email eosullivan@mvaconsultancy.com

or

Sarah White on 01483 742975
or email swhite@mvaconsultancy.com

18 June 2009