Published:

07/03/2014 05:30pm

How do you make your commute trip reduction program successful? Participation, participation!

Like the old adage about real estate, “location, location, location,” for a successful commute trip reduction program, it’s all about participation, participation, participation! This is especially true for the ridesharing element of a program, where a “critical mass” of participants is needed to provide good ride-matching possibilities.

While ridesharing, or carpooling, is usually the most challenging part of a trip-reduction program, it’s also the alternative commute mode available to most of your employees, and is very cost effective because it makes use of a huge transportation resource that already exists and is already paid for—the empty seats in your employees’ cars.

So how can you make carpooling work more effectively for your company and your employees? First, there needs to be a large enough number of participants to ensure good ride-matching possibilities. You need a system where your employees can have a high degree of confidence that they will find a good carpool match. You also need a critical mass of available rides that cover the geographic area around your worksite and offer a variety of arrival and departure times. Only then will a rideshare system become truly useful. At low levels of participation, with few rides available, the probability of finding a suitable ride match is slim. Therefore, at low participation levels, the system will fail to work well even for those participants who are enthusiastic. This is why achieving high participation is so important for ridesharing.

Unfortunately, participation in regional rideshare programs is usually very low—usually less than 1% of total commuters. To put this in perspective, if you work at a company with 1,000 employees you can expect to find fewer than 10 coworkers on the regional rideshare program, and the probability of finding someone in that group who lives near you, with a similar schedule, is rather slim. It might be possible to find a suitable match from a neighboring company, but carpooling with a stranger is unappealing to many. Commuters usually prefer to carpool with someone they know or with a coworker.

One way to increase participation and improve ride-matching possibilities is with a company-focused approach. Such a program can be very effective and can be achieved with:

•A company-specific rideshare system that allows employees to share commute information and carpool with coworkers.

•Attractive incentives and regular promotion to encourage employees to participate and reward behavior.

•Promote and reward ALL commute alternatives – not just carpooling: biking, transit, walking should all be included to maximize effectiveness and achieve buy-in from as many employees as possible

A company-focused approach with regular promotion and incentives can achieve participation rates of 20-50%. For companies with over 500 employees, this achieves the critical mass needed to make ride-matching work within the organization.

Not only will a company-focused approach be more appealing to staff, but management also buy-into and support a program that encourages employees to carpool with fellow employees. Many employers are reluctant to promote regional rideshare programs at the worksite because of confidentiality, or concerns about potential poaching if their employees are carpooling with employees from competitive organizations.

To maximize participation at your company, consider regular prizes for incentives, rather than cash rewards. Prize drawings generate news, making it easy to regularly promote your trip-reduction program by announcing who won what, and what prizes are available each month. A prize-based incentive program is a powerful promotional tool that continuously builds participation over time. It’s also considerably more cost effective. Nike with 5,100 employees in Portland, Oregon, reduced their commute-incentive bill from $250,000 to $41,000 per year by switching from a cash-out to a prize-based model.

An employer can significantly boost participation and effectiveness with a company-focused program. It’s all about maximizing the number of potential carpool partners available to your employees. The more carpool partners available, the more likely your employees will find the perfect carpool partner, and leave the solo-drive behind.

July 3, 2014

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Paul McGrath

Commute Consultant

RideSpring

paulm@ridespring.com

(831) 278-0312

twitter.com/RideSpring

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