Grosvenor recently invested in state of the art video conferencing technology in its main meeting room, in order to reduce its impact on the environment through unnecessary driving, and become more efficient with its time.
It comes at a time when the UK could see a 25% reduction in both business travel and commuting with companies looking to drive down the cost of travel, reduce their green footprint, and minimise the negative impact travel has on staff productivity.
According to ‘The British Business and Mobility Study’ by Sewells:
66% of business have set targets to reduce their volume of internal travel.
60% of businesses have targets to cut trips to suppliers.
66% of businesses have targets to lower the number of journeys to clients.
65% of businesses consider video conferencing as a viable alternative to business travel.
With online meetings, screen sharing and the rise of remote support and diagnostics, the need for travel to external meetings or to meet customers and suppliers is set to drop.
The survey showed that 48% of fleets with more than 250 cars, and 56% of fleets with between 101 to 250 cars, believe a 25% reduction in business travel is achievable within five years.
Mobility as a Service (MaaS)
The findings of the Sewells survey are interesting when you look at the growing interest in Mobility as a Service (MaaS) - a new way of thinking about transport. MaaS has the potential to be the most significant modernisation of how we get from A to B since the automobile was first introduced.
Bringing about a major change in how we view our cars, and how we choose to travel, MaaS combines mobility services from public transport, taxis, car rental and car/bicycle sharing under a single platform - all accessed through your smart phone.
Simply by stating where you are going ‘from’ and ‘to’, the
MaaS platform will plan your journey, define the forms of transport to get there and allow you to buy tickets from a range of service providers.
But what’s driving change?
55% of the global population are living in urban areas
and by 2050 projections suggest it could reach 68%.
Air quality and congestion measures will continue to
discourage drivers from using their vehicles in urban areas,
while the technology to help make choices about how to travel
is coming together rapidly.
MaaS could therefore help reduce pollution, shorten commuting times and make travelling more convenient. It could help shift commuter trips from peak times to low demand times (through demand-responsive pricing of services).
Projections suggest the estimated value of the MaaS market could reach $US600 billion in the United States, European
Union and China by 2025. Others have projected that the global market for MaaS will exceed $US1 trillion by 2030.
Interestingly, the Sewells British Business and Mobility Study found that the early adopters of MaaS solutions are more likely to be commuters than drivers who rely on a company vehicle for business journeys.
This is based on a rising tide of pressure on commuting due to wasted time in congestion, a shortage of workplace parking spaces and an anticipated lack of office space encouraging more working from home and hot desking.
The British Business and Mobility Study found:
58% of companies have taken steps, or plan to take steps,
to reduce commuting to the workplace.
67% of businesses now see working from home as a viable alternative to the workplace, and 43% of businesses actively encourage it.
69% of large corporates want to see fewer staff commuting to the workplace.
61% of businesses have set a specific target to reduce the commuter journeys.
24% of large corporate businesses and 20% of small businesses anticipate a shortage of parking spaces within the next five years.
Encouraging employees to share lifts for the journey to work and for joint journeys to visit clients is the primary solution to reduce car use, according to the report.
Andy Reed, operations director at Interactive Fleet Management said, “As a specialist fleet management provider, our remit moves with the times and we’re keeping an ever-watchful eye on the MaaS market.
“Companies will always need to get people from A to B, however with MaaS, self-driving vehicles and our ‘connected’ world growing at an incredible pace, we are heading towards offering a mobility solutions service model in the future rather than one that purely focuses on vehicle, driver and supplier management.”