T2E Transport to Employment

Lead Partner: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , Edinburgh Napier University/T2E Transport to Employment 

Project Partners: The Highland Council, European Social Fund, Working for Families, Scottish Executive / Scottish Government, Dumfries and Galloway Council, Scottish Enterprise
Duration: 2005 - 2008

The TRI Taxi Studies Group (TSG) has been involved in the development and delivery of the Transport to Employment (T2E) transport service, intended to provide rural access in instances of limited public transport.

The service has been operating for three years, and has provided access to employment for over 250 individual providing a total social benefit in excess of 1.5 million. This services is based on shared transport provision in small vehicles covering instances and times when there are no scheduled transportation services available, and has proved to be an effective means of getting people to employment.

The project has expanded from an initial pilot area of East Sutherland, Easter Ross and the South of Caithness, and is now available throughout the Highlands, Dumfries and Galloway, and as a pilot scheme in Northern Ireland. The service has also developed to include access to training and childcare alongside employment opportunities.

The lack of an adequate transportation infrastructure can prove to be a barrier, preventing people in remoter areas accessing job opportunities, training and childcare. The ability for an individual to participate in and contribute to local economic development can be significantly reduced as a result of a lack of transport, or its provision outwith hours of work. Typically a lack of transport may contribute to the numbers unable to gain or maintain employment, and this is significantly heightened in remoter communities where commercial transport providers are less able to operate profitably. By addressing fundamental gaps in an individual's ability to get to workplace, training or a combination of these and childcare access, T2E effectively facilitates employment where no opportunity previously existed.

The project has already provided direct access to new employment for over 200 individuals as well as new training opportunity, and access to childcare. As individual needs may include a combination, for example of employment and training, the exact numbers may be interchangeable between 'purpose', and in the case of access to childcare dovetail between one use and another. The project will both increase accessibility to workplace, creating new employment opportunity, and remove other structural barriers to obtaining employment, by creating access to key skill and vocational training, and access to childcare. T2E also anticipates longer term access, and includes a method by which individuals are able to maintain access beyond the supported scheme. A 'legacy' based on minimal cost recovery will allow individuals to continue to access individual services and employment for as long as such access is required.

Website: www.t2e.org.uk