Transportation Demand Management

Rolling out of bed, José checks his CommuterAlert traveler information system while his coffee brews. The regional commuter assistance program was offering the system through a local automobile dealer when José purchased the family's vehicle. CommuterAlert is predicting that his 10-mile commute on I-275, which normally takes 29 minutes, will now take 46 to 52 minutes. In his printer are identified pickup locations for three part-time carpool partners. José knows that picking them up will allow him to take advantage of the toll discounts on the high-occupancy toll facility. He remembers being skeptical of the initiative to equip the high-occupancy-vehicle lanes for electronic toll payments. Now he can't live without this travel option. As his breakfast cooks in the microwave, José decides to hold an interactive netConference from home today instead of going into the office. With a push of a button, he notifies his designer in Miami and the rest of the staff that he'll be at home today. Using his flextime account, he decides to jog before beginning work at 9:00 a.m. In the meantime, his wife tells him that she needs the family vehicle to visit her bedridden mother. Since they have stopped owning two vehicles, Brendan, his college-age son, will have to use the family's Mobility-Pass to rent a CarShare Club vehicle at the shopping center or bike to the light rail station for his trip to the city's first urban televillage. José was surprised to hear his son explain the economic benefits of moving work to the workers. The urban televillage is equipped with a user training program, daycare, and flexible space. The televillage has allowed the foundation to train underemployed workers and contract with employers from New York to San Francisco. For his master's thesis, Brendan is documenting the growth of small businesses that develop to support the televillage. As José sips his coffee, he picks up the family's monthly TransportBill and notes that the family's peak-hour travel use is down 12 percent from last year’s. Dumping the taxable parking space in favor of the pretax purchase of the MobilityPass helped lower the costs, as did the reduction of insurance costs through the pay-as-you-drive insurance. Advice from his company's Employee Transportation Coordinator on how to optimize the predictable family trips to the grocery store, library, and gym seems to have made a difference, too.