The "Service du Sang" of the Red Cross has been headquartered at Rue du Fond du Maréchal 8 in Suarlée since 2011.
Parc d’Activité ECOLYS® (business park) is ideally located geographically as it enables the "Service du Sang" to gather all its activities at one central location, as well as welcome its members of staff from all over Wallonia and Brussels.
Obviously, our collections and our blood collection centres are present in every corner of Wallonia and Brussels. Collecting blood is and must remain a local activity close to where our donors live.
Various mobility solutions are in place at the headquarters of the "Service du Sang" of the Belgian Red Cross, ECOLYS® business park (Suarlée):
The "Service du Sang" promotes various options:
- Either by sharing car rides between people who are at other companies close to the Red Cross by way of a season ticket to ‘Carpool plaza’ car pooling system
- Or by sharing car rides with colleagues who work at the same site.
We have dedicated parking spaces for cars that take part in the car pooling scheme.
The "Service du Sang" has got actively involved in the asbl IDEALYS (not-for-profit organisation), which is the Business Club of the CREALYS® and ECOLYS® business parks.
In the area of mobility, with the support from the BEP (Bureau Economique de la Province de Namur) and the TECs (regional public transport agencies for) Namur and Luxembourg, this public-private partnership came up with the idea of setting up a Mobi-Parcs bus shuttle, which links Namur railway station and the 2 business parks.
To date, around 31 employees (all companies combined) use the MOBI-PARCS shuttle every day to travel to their place of work. On top of this number, we should add occasional visitors, interns and students.
Direct access to the ECOLYS® business park for mobility-impaired persons is by road only.
At the Suarlée site, in addition to dedicated parking spaces, access to the building is assisted by a ramp.
The "Service du Sang" of the Red Cross also has a covered car park for bicycles/motorcycles within the protected enclosure, as well as changing rooms and showers.
All of these initiatives help to improve access to the Suarlée site.
Currently, some 47 employees out of 140 use one or the other of these travel methods on a regular basis, i.e. 33 % of the entire workforce of the "Service du Sang" of the Red Cross.
By prior registration and subject to certain conditions, the Red Cross also runs a shuttle service between Namur railway station and the Suarlée site for some of its members of staff.