The Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital (RD&EH) was anxious to build on its previous successes in developing measures to reduce traffic congestion and improve accessibility at their two main hospital sites in Exeter.

At a chance meeting between the RD&EH's Director of Planning Nigel Walsh and Business Move's Stuart Mitchell, at a travel planning conference in Portsmouth, this was discussed and Stuart suggested it might be possible for the RD&EH to take part in a forthcoming (50% EU funded) Interreg project and offered to contact the project's Dutch lead partner to ask if this was possible.

• Contact was therefore made by Stuart Mitchell and agreement in principle reached – subject to approval by the EU – for RD&EH to become a candidate 'partner', along with other potential partners from The Netherlands and the UK.
• There followed a lengthy assessment and qualification period during which Stuart worked closely with Nigel and the other candidates in order to obtain EU approval to the new project (called Optimum2 - for more information visit www.optimum2.org).
• Approval was duly forthcoming and a budget of 500,000 euros was made available to the RD&EH. Stuart was appointed as their travel planning consultant and has worked closely with Nigel Walsh and his team to develop a range of initiatives under the Optimum2 banner.
• These include:-
• Designing, organising and implementing a survey of the travel and commuting patterns of staff, visitors and patients
• Automatic vehicle count strips at all hospital entrances
• Increasing the frequency and quality of the dedicated RD&EH park and ride bus services
• Establishing a travel planning service for staff, patients and visitors
• Improving the range of walking and cycling services and facilities
• Close collaboration has also been developed with other partners in the UK and The Netherlands – particularly those working on web site based travel planning, real time bus systems and pan-employer travel and transport services