Carpool/Vanpool | Emergency Ride Home | Parking Management | Transit | Bicycling/Walking | Telework | Variable Work Hours

WTA Programs Services

Incentives

Employees may choose an active mode rather than driving alone if they understand the personal benefits of driving less and the employer endorses their choice by adding incentives. The strategies described below offer cost savings and convenience as motivation to choose an active mode.

Carpool and vanpool

Carpooling is a great way to get to work. Two or more people can share the costs of commuting and the stress of driving.

Vanpooling is designed for five or more people who live 10 miles from your location. WTA partners with Metro to arrange vanpools. Call us.

Incentive example: a local company offers $10 a month for carpoolers and subsidizes vanpool expenses.

Your transportation coordinator can make connections between employees who live and work near each other, have similar schedules, and want to share their commute. This requires compiling a list of each employee's home address and interest in ridesharing. Employees can share the driving expenses and decide if one person will do all the driving or if the driving can be shared. Driving expenses can be calculated by using the IRS standard of $.375 per mile or adjust upward to cover higher gas prices. Add parking expenses and decide who pays what: should the driver pay a little less for doing the driving? Carpoolers decide.

Employees can find a carpool partner by using
CarpoolMatchNW.org.

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Member benefit: WTA will be happy to organize and manage carpools and vanpools for member companies.

Emergency Ride Home

If your employees are reluctant to use active transportation because they may be stranded at work when an emergency arises, the Emergency Ride Home will be the solution. When your company participates in a TriMet pass program, the employee may use an Emergency Ride Home voucher and take a taxi to his/her destination.
www.trimet.org/employers/erh.htm

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Parking Management

Incentive: Offer cash instead of parking

Free parking is not free to your business. Commuters may choose not to drive if they had to pay the full cost of their parking. Parking management strategies include reducing the number of parking spaces and putting the real estate to a higher use, preferential parking for carpools/vanpools, and pricing strategies such as charging parking fees, "cash outs" for current users and transportation allowances for an active mode or for parking.

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Trimet Employer Programs

Incentive: Offer a pass to all employees. Or subsidize a monthly pass.

TriMet offers several programs to assist employers who wish to encourage employees to use transit. These include annual and monthly pass programs, plus an initial TriMet subsidy for new programs. TriMet allows employers to purchase passes to sell on site and return them for a full refund if they do not sell. Your payroll department can set up purchase of passes with pre-tax dollars for a tax savings for you and your employees.

A recent study found that all transit riders walked a median of 19 minutes to transit and 25% walked 30 minutes. That’s the recommended daily activity recommended by the U.S. Surgeon General. Transit IS active transportation!

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TriMet Employer Programs

SMART (South Metro Area Regional Transit)

SMART connects Wilsonville commuters north along I-5 to the Barbur Transit Center
www.ridesmart.com
I-5 Map

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Bicycling and walking

Incentives: Install covered parking for bikes; offer showers and lockers for riders, walkers (and noon-time runners). Offer a monthly stipend to bike or walk to work.

Your employees who ride bikes and walk to work arrive refreshed and less stressed. They are more productive and take fewer sick days. And they don’t need a big parking space. Twelve bikes can fit into one car parking space.

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Telework

Incentive: Your employees enjoy concentrated work time at home without fighting traffic.

Much of our work is done by computer, e-mail, phone and fax and doesn’t require us to be at the office every day. If this works for employees and your company, it’s a great way to reduce unnecessary driving trips.

Check out these web sites to determine if it’s a good strategy for your company.
International Telework Association and Council
American Telecommuting Association

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Variable Work Hours

Variable work hours allows employees to work the same number of hours in fewer days, reducing car trips, emissions and stress. The most typical schedules are 4/40 (four ten-hour days) and 9/80 (80 hours in 9 days).

Staggered work hours shift employees out of peak commute periods and reduces congestion, although it does not reduce auto trips. Staggered work hours strategy does reduce pollution because employees may be able to complete their commute in a shorter period of time. And the faster and easier the commute the more pleasant it is for your employees.

Flextime allows employees to choose their start end ending times. This may indirectly reduce car trips by encouraging the use of active modes. Flextime may make it possible for transit users to make good connections, and for car and vanpoolers to avoid congestion.

Information on variable work hours can be found at the following websites

Womans Work

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