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Helen Roby
Helen joined the department in October 2006 after completing her degree with the Open University. Her particular area of interest is travel within private business, either as a result of the commute or business travel and the potential of technology to reduce the need to travel by enabling a change in working practices. Within this, Helen has a specific interest in how travel and communication technologies can become enablers to help organisations work more effectively, the ways to engage organisations in the process of managing transport and how to sustain this process by identifying the business benefits. Within her PhD she explored the embedding process for workplace travel plans, using business models to explain the adoption and diffusion of travel plans.
Contact Information
Contact Information
Email: h.m.roby@open.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)1908 654636
Fax: +44 (0)1908 654052
Room: N2018A, Venables building
Current Project
Helen is currently working on a project with TRL funded by Transport for London that is exploring the business travel patterns within London. The work is looking at ways to encourage modal shift to more sustainable modes of transport or the substitution of a physical journey with a virtual meeting. The research will then go onto explore the links between a change in business travel policy and the commute or working practices to help develop a more holistic access management strategy within business.
PhD Thesis
The thesis concentrated on the business perspective of travel plans, through a series of in depth interviews within organisations. These interviews were analysed using innovation and business models, such as elements of Rogers' (2003) Diffusion of Innovations and Mintzberg's (1983) Structure in Fives, Designing Effective Organisations, to explore the impact of the characteristics and structure of an organisation on the embedding of a travel plan.
The research identified factors that have helped to organisationally embed travel plans. A key finding was to show that the motivations for a travel plan change as it matures, from those of external regulation through the planning process, to internal goals such as corporate responsibility and the environment, business growth and human resources issues. This research has shown the importance of linking travel plans to these organisational goals in the embedding process. However, successful embedding is not easy. There is a danger that a travel plan can either remain siloed within an estates function or become so widely dispersed that the benefits are poorly visible. In either case the travel plan runs the risk of being marginalised or lost. The research has also shown that this process of embedding is reliant on the adaption of the travel plan to match the culture and working practices within an organisation, and that this process of adaption can be dependent on the position of the travel planner within a strategic area of organisation.
The work showed that there is a danger that travel planning policy can be too focussed on the early stages of adoption and not enough on growing and maturing travel plans, with the result that they are too narrow, and unlikely to yield the business benefits that will secure their long term future.
Publications
Roby H, 2010, Can travel plans escape the planning ghetto?, Town and Country Planning, January
Roby H, 2010, Applying Business Studies Methods to Transport Research, UTSG Annual Conference, Plymouth University, January
Roby H, 2010, Workplace Travel Plans: Past, Present and Future, Journal of Transport Geography, Volume 1, Issue 18, pages 23-30, 10.1016/jtrangeo 2008.11.010.
Roby H, 2009, The Development of Workplace Travel Plans, UTSG Annual Conference, UCL London, January
Roby H, 2008, Viewpoint, Policy makers see travel plans as a 'green' tool but do employers see them in the same way?, Local Transport Today, No. 498, 11-24 July, page 18
Roby, H (2008b): Travel Plans dancing to a new tune, Smart Moves, Issue 5 p14, Department for Transport, London. [pdf copy]
Presentations
Roby H, 2010, Applying Business Studies Methods to Transport Research, UTSG Annual Conference, Plymouth University, January
Roby H, 2009, The Death of the Travel Plan?, Loughborough University, Lunch and Lecture, May
Roby H, 2009, Which Way Forward for Travel Plans?, UWE, Centre for Transport and Society, March
Roby H, 2009, The Development of Workplace Travel Plans, UTSG Annual Conference, UCL London, January
Roby H, 2008, Workplace Travel Plans, How to Keep Them Going, ACT/Travelwise Autumn Conference, Birmingham, November
Roby H, 2008, Travel Planning: Moving from the Reactive to the Proactive, NBTN Members Meeting, London, June
Roby H, 2008, What Sustains Travel Plans?, Loughborough University, Lunch and Lecture, May
Other Activities
Reviewing journal articles for Journal of Transport Geography and Transport Research, Part A.
Page Last Updated: 12 April, 2010