Changing the Car Culture Down Under

Changing the Car Culture Down Under - Australia Entices Commuters Off the Roads One Household at a Time With Educational Marketing Push, Elaborate Bike-Ped Infrastructure highlights how the personalized approach to influencing travel behavior is making a significant impact in Australia.

This article serves as a reminder that while it is easy to become infatuated with the latest technological solutions to congestion, it is the one-on-one assistance that continues to demonstrate its effectiveness in changing travel behavior. It really isn't a new lesson. For example, Personalized Approach for Ridesharing Projects: Experience of Share-A-Ride in Silver Spring showed that coaching commuters was a very effective means of changing behavior.

These travel behavior changes are more than just moving drive alone commuters to carpools but include approaches for adjusting time of travel (e.g., discounts on the shoulder of the peak in Ft. Myers) or routes - even without mode shift. For example, FHWA Congestion Pricing - A Primer reports that "In Ft. Myers, Florida, a 50 percent discount on the toll was offered on the Midpoint and Cape Coral bridges for a short period of time before and after the rush hours. Survey data revealed that, among those eligible for the discount, there was an increase in traffic of as much as 20 percent during the discount period before the morning rush hours, with corresponding drops in the rush hour itself."

Focusing on the Retention of Carpoolers and Transit Riders

I just returned from annual meeting of the Southeast chapter of Association for Commuter Transportation in Sarasota, FL where I heard several interesting presentations about "new" approaches to reducing vehicle trips and vehicle miles of travel. Rick Steele with NuRide demonstrated their incentive-based approach. NuRide offers commuters the choice of a wide range of rewards provided by local and national businesses to commuters who use travel options other than driving alone and record their trips. An added benefit - the value of these donated rewards are used by some communities as local match for funding purposes.

This apparent win-win focus is on rewarding people to increase "loyalty" and frequency of those commuters who use of options other than driving alone. Another outcome from this approach is increased word-of-mouth advertising to increase participation.

While many TDM agencies seem to focus most of their resources on trying to convert the "drive alone" commuter, approaches like NuRide reflect an understanding that it should be less expensive to retain existing customers (and increase "purchasing" behavior) than attract new customers and pay for performance (the more you do, the more points you earn). Given the erosion of the regular use of transit and carpooling over the years, one wonders how many more people would have remained in those modes if more attention (and resources) were placed on retaining existing transit riders, carpoolers, etc. Still, it isn't too late to start.

Double taxation risk for out-of-state teleworkers - FederalTimes.com

In her letter on May 17 to FederalTimes.com, Nicole Belson Goluboff, author of "The Law of Telecommuting" and "Telecommuting for Lawyers" and member of the advisory board of the Telework Coalition (www.TelCoa.org) discusses double taxation risk for some out-of-state teleworkers.

Clearly, this is an obstacle for expanding the use of telework. HR 2600 Telecommuters Tax Fairness Act of 2009 would prohibit "a state from imposing an income tax on the compensation of a nonresident individual for any period in which such individual is not physically present in or working in such state or from deeming such nonresident individual to be present in or working in such state on the grounds that: (1) such individual is present at or working at home for convenience; or (2) such individual's work at home fails any convenience of the employer test or any similar test." For the status of this bill, search THOMAS on "Telecommuters Tax Fairness Act of 2009".

TDM has failed us; Bury it

As a marketing guy and a wordsmith, I enjoy these types of “telework vs. telecommute” discussions. From my POV, it’s our job to use words and language that will engage our target audiences… not the jargon of our technical peers.

Case in point is the old debate on “Transportation Demand Management”. After all these decades I would guess that less than a few percent of commuters have any idea what it means. The term has failed to serve our community of TDM evangelists. It’s a losing phrase and it’s time to bury TDM.

Commuter Choice and Commuter Options have been suggested and tried for years, but neither of these have taken off.

I would like to get the debate restarted by suggesting:

Green Transportation Options
Green Transportation Strategies
Green Transportation Alternatives
Green Commuting

Respectfully,

Denis Eirikis
President
Clear Light Communications Inc.