The carbon hierarchy, as above, shows travel methods in order of sustainability – it is a helpful tool to consider the impact of travel decisions and supports the consideration of suitable alternatives. For further information and offers, please visit our sustainable travel pages.
The 2022 travel survey revealed that only 57% of our staff travelled sustainably – this blog highlights all the alternative modes and offers to help you cut emissions and potentially save money by travelling by other means than driving single occupancy vehicles. Keep reading to find out how to beat the traffic with our new FREE Park and Ride link from junction 11 of the M4 and how to save money with our new lift share scheme.
The University has beautiful campuses and each one is easy to navigate via foot. Our walking webpage shows how to get to and around Whiteknights, Greenlands and London Road. Walking is popular with our staff – the 2022 University travel survey revealed that 20% of staff travel to University via foot. Walking is sustainable, FREE and great for your physical and mental health.
The 2022 travel survey revealed that just under 11% of our staff population travel to University by bike. Cycling to University is a fantastic option to keep you fit and another great way to travel more sustainably – we support cyclists in the following ways:
- Weekly Dr Bike FREE bike maintenance sessions, 12 to 2pm Palmer Quad.
- FREE cycling training
- Low cost bike hire with our Unicycle scheme
- Security Services offer discounted D locks to keep your bike safe and secure
- Cycle2Work scheme to help you with cost of purchasing a bike
- All EASIT card holders can get 10% off bike servicing at Halfords until July 2023
See here for all our cycling related travel offers!
We work in partnership with Reading Buses and our Whiteknights, Earley Gate and London Road campuses are well served by the local bus network – all information can be found on our Bus travel webpage.
All staff are eligible to apply for the Bus 2 Work scheme which offers great discounts for bus travel. If you buy PlusBus with your rail ticket, you can add unlimited bus travel around the Reading urban area.
Our Whiteknights, London Road and Earley gate campuses are well served by local train stations which are a short walk away. The University offer a rail season ticket loan scheme to help improve the affordability of train travel. This can be combined with an Easit membership card to get an extra 15% over journeys taken within the Southern Rail / SW Railway area that involved travel to / from Reading station.
We have now launched a new FREE Park and Ride service from Mereoak, junction 11 of the M4. We have partnered with Reading Buses and the Royal Berkshire NHS Trust to enable staff to use the existing NHS H3 service. Simply show your staff campus card to the driver and also you can park at Mereoak for free!
We also now have the lift share tool which is part of the Doing #UoRBit staff platform. This allows you to connect with other staff who might want to share their commute – either by car, public transport, cycling or walking. Collect Green Points simply by sharing your commute and also for every journey that is shared.
We now also have a University Co Wheels business account which allows staff to book any of the vehicles across Reading for University business. Simply include the relevant project code as the ‘Booking Description code’ when making a booking so that the cost can be recharged back to the relevant departments. Staff also have the option of adding a personal account to their staff account and, by using the ‘UOR25’ promo code, can receive £25 driver credit for personal bookings and no monthly fees.
Further information
- We are always keen to hear suggestions about how we could improve sustainable travel at the University – email us on sustainability@reading.ac.uk with any ideas!
- If you want to find out more about our 2022 Travel Survey you can read the full report here or check out our summary infographic.
