Design
Leading by Example
The Planning Authority is encouraging organizations to offer their employees
incentives to commute to work in a green way – and it is leading by example.
T
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he Planning Authority
has introduced a variety
of schemes for its own
employees,
ranging
from a minibus service, to free top
up of Tal-Linja cards, ferry tickets
across Marsamxett and Grand Har-
bour, and incentives for those who
commute by walking, have bicycles,
scooters or who car-pool. Other
measures also include the provision
of an emergency vehicle (to ensure
that staff who only use their car just
in case they have to leave quickly to
attend to an emergency can use pub-
lic transport but would be ferried
quickly should anything unfortunate
happen to relatives), the increased
deployment of electric or hybrid
cars. A wider flexitime period (start-
ing from 6:00 to 9:00) also helps as
the tailing hours of the arrival peri-
od do not coincide with the morning
rush hour, thus helping with reduc-
ing the car load at any one time. A
number of additional measures are
contemplated for the future.
There are a number of objectives that
may be met through these measures.
One is reducing the actual number of
vehicles on the road and the associat-
ed need for parking spaces. Another
is to promote the use of more envi-
ronmentally friendly vehicles. Yet an-
other is to reduce the need for travel.
It is estimated that on average, each
car requires in the region of 200
square metres of road if it travels at
a maximum speed of 80 kilometres
an hour. “Cars take up much more
space than people realise because of
the road requirements. This does
not include just the car footprint but
also the safety distance from other
cars. If lateral distances of adjacent
lanes are taken into account then the
figure is even higher. Parking also
takes a lot of space. When using pri-
vate vehicles, parking is required at
each location where the car stops and
the driver temporarily leaves the car.
This is applicable to home, places
visited (like work, shops etc.), visits
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DESIGN&BUILD
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Q1, 2017
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