8.0 Area-Wide Rideshare Incentives

Programs for the provision of all forms high-occupancy, shared-ride services.
Section 108 (viii), CAAA

Introduction

Area-wide rideshare incentives promote and assist state, regional, and local efforts aimed at encouraging commuters to use alternatives to SOVs in traveling to work and encourage employers to provide in-house programs that promote ridesharing, transit, bicycling, and walking among employees. This strategy facilitates most employer-based transportation management programs and provides another example of the overlap between individual emission reduction strategies. The EPA has found that these programs are effective in enhancing the emission reduction efforts of small- and medium-sized businesses in an area.

Main Components

The three main categories of area-wide rideshare incentives include the following:

• Commute management organizations are third-party ridesharing agencies that provide rideshare matching or alternative commute organization or incentive programs. The programs focus largely on employers, given their influence over employee commute and working patterns.

• Transportation management associations (TMAs) provide a structure for developers, property managers, employers, and public officials to cooperatively promote programs that mitigate traffic congestion, assist commuters, and encourage particular modes of travel in specific areas. TMAs can also provide government and private industry with a forum for discussion of current and future roadway and transit needs in an area.

• State and local tax incentive and subsidy programs provide incentives and disincentives for employers and employees to consider and utilize alternative modes of transportation to commute instead of SOVs.

Other Considerations

The costs and benefits of area-wide rideshare incentive programs are difficult to measure. The EPA has found it difficult to establish causality between area-wide incentives and reduced VMT and emissions. Commute management organizations, TMAs, and state and local tax incentives and subsidies are supportive of in-house employer programs, but the agency has concluded that there appears to be no evaluation that has estimated the impact of these programs above and beyond that attributable to the employer programs. The programs do improve the effectiveness of employer-based ridesharing programs, produce results among unaffiliated commuters, and serve to maintain existing levels of shared ride modes. It is a difficult task to separate the impacts of these programs above and beyond those reported for employers or to speculate on the increase in VMT or emissions if these programs did not exist.

As noted in Section 4 (employer-based transportation management programs), care must be taken not to double-count the effectiveness of area-wide rideshare incentives with the benefits of employer-based transportation management programs. The roles and responsibilities of various public, nonprofit, and for-profit organizations involved in promoting ridesharing and other travel alternatives within a region must be carefully delineated so their various efforts are not perceived as either duplicative or conflicting by employers and individuals.