Harwell Campus, the UK’s leading science and innovation campus, has strengthened its commitment to provide sustainable travel to its members, in partnership with Thames Travel.
It has increased its support for bus travel discounts for Harwell Campus employees from a 20% to a 25% saving against standard prices, to encourage even more people to use active modes of travel to commute.
The enhanced incentive builds on the success of Thames Travel’s Science Transit Shuttle service, which was launched in 2019 to connect key sites in Oxford and Harwell Campus via a partnership between the bus operator, The University of Oxford and the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC).
Patronage has recovered to pre-pandemic levels on Thames Travel services to Harwell Campus and the increased discount is designed to further help support a continued shift to sustainable modes of transport. As part of the partnership further initiatives to enhance bus services to the world-leading community will also be announced this year.
Luke Marion, Thames Travel Managing Director, said: “This partnership is a great example of what can be achieved when stakeholders share a common purpose and we’re excited by what we can further achieve at Harwell Campus. One of our key strategic objectives was to improve connectivity between Oxford and key employment sites in south Oxfordshire and having such visionary partners as Harwell Campus is now enabling us to make a real difference to traffic congestion, air quality and sustainability in the area.”
Emmanuel Deschamps, Sustainability Manager at Harwell Campus said: “We’re delighted to have secured an increased discount for our members who travel to Harwell by bus. By encouraging more sustainable travel, we’re hoping we can further minimise our environmental impact, by reducing congesting and improving air quality.”
Paul Cross, Head of Capital Development at the Science and Technology Facilities Council said: “As the largest employer at Harwell with several thousand scientific, research and engineering staff on site we are hoping that this increased discount up to 25% will persuade more colleagues to commute to and from the campus via bus and so help to improve the overall air quality in Oxfordshire.”
The Harwell Campus discount applies to the South Oxfordshire Zone and cityzone passes and can be booked via the key and app. Thames Travel connects Didcot, Wantage and Oxford to Harwell Campus, with services every 30 minutes between Harwell and Oxford and Harwell and Wantage, and every 15 minutes between Harwell and Didcot.
Harwell Campus is a world leading campus with a community of experts pioneering advances in energy, space, health and quantum computing.
Thames Travel’s fleet of buses are low emission vehicles, and it is the third largest bus operator in Oxfordshire.
