Smart Growth: The Future of Sustainable Transportation

With rising concerns about climate change, companies are taking actions to raise the bar on corporate sustainability practices.  Efforts shouldn’t only be limited to paper straws and reusable cups. Improvements to employee commuting can significantly boost your sustainable impact.

While employees make their own choices about how to commute, the decisions you make around Transportation Demand Management (TDM) as a business can have a huge impact on those choices. TDM refers to a set of strategies aimed at reducing the number of single-occupancy vehicles on the road to prevent traffic congestion and improve air quality, while also ensuring travel safety and convenience. Using TDM strategies, you’ll be able to create initiatives that focus on reducing the need for individual car trips by incentivizing travel options like carpooling and public transit while also creating an effective way to transport commuters more efficiently than ever before.

Let’s look at a few examples of how TDM strategies can help you level up your corporate sustainability initiatives.

1. Reduce Your Companies Carbon Footprint With Flexible Working Policies

Every day that a person works from home means a day of vehicle emissions saved. Companies should look into offering telework options whenever possible so hybrid and/or remote work can become a standard practice among their workforces.

Aside from decreasing the time workers spend stuck in traffic multiple times per week, telework options can mean real savings for employees who can eliminate commuting costs. It also can reduce an individual’s carbon footprint by preventing unnecessary greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated from commuting trips.

Creating company policies that limit employee travel will help justify your organization’s ambition towards achieving better sustainability goals even further. Our Fall 2022 Remote Work Survey found that 41 percent of employees would prefer to work from home full-time, which highlights the growing desire for flexwork among employees.

GCO has helped over 1,500 companies like yours implement flexwork and telework policies. Learn more about how we can help with this transition here.

2. Make Transit More Affordable Through Commuter Benefits

Commuter benefits are becoming an increasingly popular way to keep your company competitive when it comes to attracting and retaining workers long-term.

Commuter benefits are financial perks that cover your employee’s eligible commute-to-work expenses like transit passes with pre-tax income. This saves money for both you and your employees.

A popular, cost-effective benefit to consider is making public transit passes cheaper through a pre-tax purchasing program. Employers are also subsidizing the financial burden of driving while encouraging more people to take advantage of public transportation.

It also helps reduce traffic congestion, which reduces air pollution and makes cities more sustainable. Ultimately, workers can save time and money since they won’t need to worry about paying for parking or gas as frequently.

3. Expand Travel Options Through Carpooling Programs

No car? No problem! Carpooling to work can be a great alternative if your employees don’t have a car.

Carpooling allows multiple people traveling in the same direction to share a ride to work, meaning everyone saves on transportation costs, reduces CO2 emissions and gets to their destination faster and with less effort.

If you have friends, family or coworkers that live in the same general area, coordinating with them is a great option, but if you don’t know anybody that can share a ride with you…

We highly recommend our GA Commute App, which helps employees find coworkers to share rides to work with and even lets them earn cash rewards.

Companies can encourage employees to take advantage of potential carpool arrangements through company-wide announcements or with the help of Georgia Commute Options.

We’re Here to Do the Heavy Lifting for You

Many businesses in Georgia want to make sustainable transportation choices more accessible to their workers, but they need a system to help them with the logistics and implementation.

Without proper planning and support, it can be difficult for these businesses to coordinate options for their teams. This lack of support makes it challenging for businesses to adopt flexible work hours or provide transit benefits that could motivate employees to leave their cars at home.

Georgia Commute Options provides free, easy-to-use resources that help companies like yours leverage TDM strategies like these to craft tailored solutions that promote smarter commuting practices.

Ready to transform your company and play your part in improving air quality across Georgia?

Learn more about how we can help your company drive change here.