During a conference in London earlier this week, named Sustainable Transport 2012 – Enabling Sustainable Choices, representatives from Chevin participated in seminars involving a number of industry heavy weights, including the Minister for Sustainable Transport, Norman Baker and Chair of the Economy and Transport Board at the Local Government Association, Peter Box CBE.

Key themes arising from the conference included a heightened need to make choosing sustainable transportation more appealing to the public and creating greener public transportation models – such as uptake of electric vehicles. Car sharing, cycling and walking were also themes raised by delegates as a means of facilitating greener communities.

Already helping organisations reduce CO2 emissions, monitor MPG and fuel consumption, and reduce costs through facilitating more efficient operations and management of fleet data, Chevin is supporting calls to make sustainable transportation more than just a concept and urging transport operators in the public sector to embrace innovation in order to realise the benefits of cleaner fleet management.

Commenting on the conference and how it will feed into the software firm’s research and development strategy, Kevin Hudson, sales manager, said: ‘Taking a greener approach to fleet management or providing alternatives to travelling by car to employees or the general public has been on the agenda for some time. Yet it’s only really starting to gather pace with the launch of the recent white paper from the Department of Transport entitled: Creating Growth, Cutting Carbon: Making Sustainable Local Transport Happen.

‘At Chevin, we like to adapt our solutions to the changing demands of the market and are committed to helping public sector clients meet stringent targets relating to reducing harmful emissions and providing employees, stakeholders, communities and customers with viable, well managed alternative to travelling by car. We already provide a range ‘green’ tools to help local authorities achieve their environmental objectives but will be devoting additional internal R&D resource into exploring new avenues so we can do our part in making sustainable local transport happen,’ he added.

With a green car share project underway with Bristol City Council to promote car sharing and alternative means of transport to employees, accompanied with on-going management of several large public transport networks and a series of public sector focus groups on the horizon, Chevin is determined to lead the way in supporting the UK’s public sector in achieving its goals relating to greener and more sustainable transport operations.