The impact of CT

Social & economic exclusion

National and local policies have identified five key components of daily life, to which we all need access as a basis for a healthy and fulfilling life:

People who are young, able bodied or with access to a car often take getting to or from work, school or college, the Doctor, the shops or to meet friends for granted.

Inability to do so, due to lack of access to transport, results in groups or individuals becoming marginalised and socially excluded.

In plain language,

The above are the components of social and economic exclusion. Social and economic exclusion make it more difficult, amongst other things, to find and maintain employment.

CT helps combat social and economic exclusion by providing access to the five key components.

Social impact

Community transport in Greater Manchester has a considerable impact on access to the five key areas of activity identified as priorities both in national and local policies – 2008 figures estimated these as Employment (36% of individual trips), Education (32% of individual trips), Healthcare (20% of individual trips), Social & Cultural (54% of group trips) and Education (34% of group trips).

CT’s community-based approach means regular drivers from the local area build up a rapport with passengers. This can build feelings of safety and security and help break down barriers of isolation. It can also act as an informal warning system – a call from a regular driver, “Mrs Jones isn’t answering the door today – should I call for help?” can alert family or agencies to problems that may otherwise go unnoticed.

In addition to the economic contribution that it makes to society, volunteering also makes a valuable social contribution. On an individual basis, it can also help to improve self-esteem and social skills and provide a route into, or a means of return to, employment.  Anecdotal evidence suggests this is particularly the case with volunteer driving.

Economic impact

With a turnover of £4.9 million, and the provision of over 130 full-time jobs, the GM CT sector clearly has a considerable economic impact.

In addition:

If volunteer hours were to be costed at the same rate as a casually-employed driver - £6.50 per hour – this represents a contribution by volunteering of over £225,000.

During 2008-2009, the GM CT sector contributed significantly to workforce skills, within a sector where there are acknowledged skills shortages. CT operators trained over five hundred drivers (both volunteers and paid employees) to nationally-recognised MiDAS standards.

Environmental impact

The CT sector made over half a million individual passenger journeys during 2007-2008. There are no indicators available to determine how many of these journeys would have been made by car, had CT not been available.

Indeed, it might be argued that some research to estimate this would be considered useful.

Assuming a 75% loading factor (eight passengers, which may be conservative) for CT vehicles, compared with a 100% loading factor (four passengers, which may be optimistic) for a car, some rough calculations, in relation to group transport at least, can be made.

Every journey (comprising eight individual trips) in a CT vehicle could therefore result in a saving of at least one car journey. Using the indicative figures for 2008-2009 (249,020 group trips), it can be seen that community transport could have saved over thirty one thousand car journeys in Greater Manchester.

Further information

For more information about the impact of community transport in Greater Manchester, you can download the following reports:

Making an impact - A reporting framework for monitoring & evaluation of the sector (2007-2008)

The impact of community transport in Greater Manchester (2008-2009)