Vanpooling as it can help building owners and residential/commercial developments and transportation management associations.

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Atlanta Office & Commercial Real Estate Magazine
Volume VI Fall 2003
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Traffic Congestion and Poor Air
Quality Affecting Your Business?
Consider Vanpooling!
David J. Harrison
Manager for the Atlanta Customer Service Center
VPSI, Inc.
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
We have all read the headlines telling us that Atlanta will soon be downgraded
by the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) from our current
“serious” to a “severe” category because of worsening air quality. A recent
Atlanta Journal/Constitution article headlined “Severe rating for air quality
could be costly to business.”
Traffic congestion in the region has gotten progressively worse. As a property
manager, you don’t need to read about THAT; we all experience it every day
either by sitting in traffic ourselves or by hearing about it from existing
tenants. Worse still, you hear about it from prospective tenants. Many national
companies now are deliberating whether they even want to relocate to Atlanta
because of the growing traffic problem here.
At the end of the day, no matter how the issues of air quality and traffic
congestion are analyzed, the single largest contributor to the problem is the
number of Single Occupancy Vehicle (SOV) commuters in the region. Simply
put, we need to reduce the number of cars on our roads, and reduce the
number of vehicles traveling to, from and through your properties. The trick is
to reduce the number of vehicles WITHOUT reducing the number of PEOPLE in
your building(s) and do it in a way that serves both your and their best
interests.
A number of solutions are available, including public mass transit,
telecommuting, walking and the like. Many of these modes have severe
limitations. A bus or train can only serve people who work or live near its
route, and it takes years to plan, fund and implement expansions. There are
similar issues related to adding routes or changing existing ones.
Telecommuting is effective, but requires infrastructure and doesn’t work well
when the job requires face-to-face contact with customers or must be
performed at a particular location. Walking is a healthy alternative, but
physical distance from the destination precludes this mode as a primary
commute choice for most of us. One transportation solution that can be
implemented quickly, operates flexibly, and is extremely cost-effective is
vanpooling.
Think of a vanpool as a carpool on steroids. Instead of one person to a vehicle
as is the case most often, or two to three people per vehicle as most carpools
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2. are, a vanpool typically accommodates between six to 15 people in a single
vehicle. “Sounds good,” you think, “but I don’t have the time, staff, or budget
to set up a program, organize it and run it.” Not a problem. The solution? In a
word: MetroVanPool.
MetroVanPool operates 140 routes in the Atlanta area and is the Atlanta trade
name for VPSI, a 26-year-old rideshare management company operating some
3,600 routes in the United States and over 60 in Europe through a network of
46 customer service centers. VPSI was recently recognized by the EPA in
Washington with its 2002 Clean Air Excellence Award for providing 30,000
commuters daily with a way to improve air quality while minimizing traffic
congestion.
If you are concerned about the ever-growing problems of traffic congestion
and air pollution and how it may impact your business as a property manager
or developer, MetroVanPool stands ready to work with you at no cost to find
ways we can help you deal with these issues.
MetroVanPool provides a turnkey commuter service. From the standpoint of
customer convenience, it is the nearest thing to driving your own car to work.
As our slogan says, it’s neighbors riding with neighbors. We provide the
vehicles, together with insurance, maintenance and back-up service; help
recruit passengers and volunteer drivers; broker and match groups of six to
fifteen people with similar home locations, work locations and work schedules;
and often assist groups in locating places to gather on the way in to work so
they have a place to leave their cars. MetroVanPool actively works with a
number of partners in the metro area to facilitate this process including:
All of the eight Transportation Management Associations (TMAs), most of
which provide vanpool fare support, empty seat subsidies and other
incentives. Many of you serve as Board Members on these organizations
and/or the Community Improvement District (CID) Boards that help
support them.
The Clean Air Campaign (CAC) has sponsored vanpool fare incentive
programs and continues to actively work with us and area employers to
promote and implement vanpool options.
The Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA) has entered into
an agreement with VPSI and makes available a fare support rebate to
vanpool groups that report their passenger counts and mileage on a
monthly basis as part of the National Transit Database (NTD). This in
turn helps to increase the funding available to the region to support an
array of transportation initiatives.
Commute Connections, the service provided through the Atlanta
Regional Commission via their 1-800-RIDE-FIND number, has actively
worked with us to assist in the applicant-matching process. VPSI, in
turn, has shared all of our applicant data with the region since the
database was created.
We would like to add YOU to the list of organizations we work with and to
explore with you and other building owner/managers and employers the steps
we can take to reduce the number of SOVs in and around the properties you
manage, while at the same time providing an added benefit to your tenants
and your employees. BOMA’s Traffic and Transportation Committee has
supported this idea.
One approach that has proven effective as a tool to reduce the number of SOV
commuters has been the implementation of Commuter Choice programs by
employers. “Commuter Choice” is a term that refers to both an array of
Transportation Demand Management (TDM) strategies to promote alternatives
to single occupancy vehicle commuting and to certain tax incentives available
under the Internal Revenue Tax code of “Qualified Transportation Fringe
Benefit Allowances.” Among the significant benefits such programs make
available to employees and companies that offer these programs is the ability
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3. to provide a benefit of up to $100 per month per commuter, without any tax
liability to the recipient. In the case of a payroll deduction program using the
employee’s own funds, this can be as a pretax deduction — effectively lowering
the cost of the commute by the employee’s marginal tax rate.
This type of program can be promoted to your tenants through a joint effort on
the part of the building manager, MetroVanPool staff, and (in many cases) the
local TMA director to plan an approach to a few “key” tenants, describe the
problem, and explain how such a program benefits BOTH the employer AND
the employee.
The bottom line: MetroVanPool will work with you and your tenant population
to reduce the number of vehicles you need to accommodate at the work sites
you manage. This benefits:
The commuters — By saving them the cost of the wear and tear on their
personal cars, as well as the stress of commuting solo and dealing with
the traffic daily. The cost to the riders is significantly less than the cost
to own and operate a car as these expenses are SHARED in a vanpool.
These expenses can be further reduced through Commuter Choice
programs and the support of TMAs and the Clean Air Campaign where
available.
The volunteer drivers — Again, through saving them the cost of the wear
and tear on their personal cars. In addition, the primary volunteer driver
typically rides FREE in exchange for driving. All drivers have the
opportunity for personal use of the van during the day, as well as
evenings, weekends and holidays.
The employer — Vanpooling serves to increase the available work force
through eliminating a car as a prerequisite for employment. Over a
quarter-century of experience has taught us that vanpool riders tend to
have lower absenteeism and a significantly better “on-time” rate than
those who commute by themselves.
Building owners and property managers — Vanpooling serves as a way
to significantly reduce the total number of vehicles accessing a property.
This serves to lower congestion in and around the properties. Such a
service also constitutes a significant enhancement of amenities available
to tenants in properties with these programs in place. This is a tool to
help secure new tenants and retain existing ones.
The region as a whole — We ALL benefit through reductions in SOV
commutes — through a reduction in traffic congestion, and with it, a
concurrent reduction in the amount of pollution in our atmosphere. This
ultimately helps improve our overall air quality and quality of life.
For more information, please visit the company’s Website at
www.MetroVanPool.com.
David J. Harrison currently serves as manager for the Atlanta Customer
Service Center of VPSI. In this capacity he has full P&L responsibility for all
VPSI operations in Georgia, including the Atlanta-based MetroVanPool
program.
Currently the MetroVanPool program encompasses a fleet of 150 vans
operating 130 routes serving 26 counties in the Metro Atlanta area. This fleet
generated over 1.9 million revenue miles in 2001. A long-time advocate of
public/private partnerships in transportation, Harrison has managed contract
operations with both Cobb County (Georgia) and the South Carolina-based
Lower Savannah Council of Governments (LSCOG) for the Savannah River Site
(SRS).
His government activities also include work with the Birmingham Regional
Planning Commission (BRPC) in Alabama, the Atlanta Regional Commission
(ARC), the Partnership for a Smog Free Georgia (PSG), the Georgia Regional
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4. Transportation Authority (GRTA), the Metropolitan Atlanta Regional Transit
Authority (MARTA), and the State Transportation Implementation Program
(STIP) Planning Review Committee of the Georgia Department of
Transportation.
Mr. Harrison holds a bachelor of arts degree with a major in political science
and minors in management, computer science and art history from DePaul
University of Chicago. While there, he was elected to Pi Gamma Mu
(International Honor Society in the Social Sciences) and Blue Key (National
University Service Leaders Honor Society).
Click here to read about BOMA Atlanta.
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