Whitbread reduces car park congestion with Liftshare

Whitbread is the UK’s largest hotel, restaurant and coffee shop operator with 45,000 employees who are passionate about making everyday experiences special for our millions of customers both in the UK and overseas.

At their Luton location, where 700 staff reside, the company struggled with car park congestion. The site offered 360 spaces around the building and a further 142 spaces within a 15 minute walk. Every member of staff was given access to both car parks (first come first served basis). Public transport links were limited at the site and they needed a new solution – car-sharing was it.

Initially staff strongly opposed the idea of car-sharing on their commute, but a Liftshare scheme was implemented, along with 16 new dedicated car-share spaces.

Liftshare’s experience and knowledge in behavioural change helped to overcome the initial resistance – by developing and implementing a six week launch campaign, we were able to overcome the traditional barriers to car sharing and gain that all-important critical mass.

The original target for take-up was 15% of staff within 24 months, in less than 3 the scheme had already achieved 30% with 210 members signed up.

Today, 43% of members registered are sharing their journey and 84% of those who are sharing used to drive alone – reducing car park congestion substantially.  Not only that, those sharing will save an estimated 285.1 tonnes of CO2 and 298,339 miles in the next 12 months.

Wayne Shaer – Facilities Manager said…

Our partnership with Liftshare has been a great success. Despite initial concerns about the idea, once the word got round about how simple it was to join and seek a travel partner, the scheme took off. Going beyond our start-up targets and continually growing. So much so that we are looking for more spaces to designate as Liftshare only bays, this is to honour our promise of priority parking at the site.

Personally it is a pleasure to work with Liftshare, they all are passionate and knowledgeable and continuously helpful. Offering advice about communication techniques, marketing the idea and visiting the site to boost our campaign.

If you'd like more information on how car-sharing could help your organisation, please get in touch.