Carpool Benefits

• Emory University
  
• Nike

Emory University—Atlanta, Georgia

Emory University, with approximately 10,000 students and 14,000 faculty and staff, is located on the outskirts of Atlanta. Emory's carpool program is administered by the Division of Community Services, which includes an Alternative Transportation Office. The university contains a major hospital and clinic.

Emory provides incentives to carpoolers in the form of reduced parking rates and, in some cases, reserved spaces. Emory recognizes three categories of carpools, which are based on the number of full-time employees registered in the carpool. All carpools must register with the Parking Office to receive hangtags for the rear view mirror. Both university and hospital/clinic employees are eligible to participate in carpool programs. Students are not eligible.

Annual parking rates range from under $200 (for hospital and clinic employees) to $900 for 24-hour reserved faculty spaces. Most university employees pay $219 per year. Reserved spaces are exclusively for individual vehicles; there are no "carpool only" parking areas in the lots (i.e., carpools with non-reserved spaces compete for spaces with solo drivers). All carpool participants also receive a "Value Pass" hangtag to be used when they need to occasionally drive to work alone. The Value Pass allows 12 entries per year; additional passes may be purchased for $36. Emory advises potential carpoolers to register with the regional Commute Connections service, a rideshare organization run by the Atlanta Regional Commission.

Emory began its program approximately 8 years ago to alleviate parking congestion on the main campus (employees at other locations do not have carpool incentives). The program currently involves almost 400 riders registered in 170 carpools (an average vehicle occupancy of 2.08 persons). The program is publicized through commuter fairs, which are often held as components of larger events such as Staff Day. There is also an e-mail list server with 11,000 participants.

Emory has managed to minimize cheating through a gated parking lot; the hangtags issued to carpoolers are barcoded to allow entry. To help prevent invalid registrations, they require all carpools to re-register annually, so they can check carpoolers' names against current employment records. People caught cheating are banned from the carpool program. Emory has in the past terminated employees for transit benefits program fraud, but so far that has not occurred in the carpool program.

Nike—Beaverton, Oregon

Nike, the popular footwear manufacturer headquartered in suburban Portland, has an extensive commuting program that includes two types of carpooling incentives. First, carpools have reserved parking areas until 10:00 a.m. Second, carpoolers are eligible, along with all other non-single occupant vehicle commuters, for monthly and quarterly prize drawings.

According to Linda Odekirk, Nike's employee transportation coordinator, carpoolers previously received "Nike Bucks," vouchers that could be used to purchase food, merchandise, or other on-site services, every time they arrived in a carpool at the main campus. However, this program proved to be too expensive, so 3 years ago, it was replaced with the prize drawings. Under the Nike Bucks program, Nike spent approximately $250,000 a year on commuter incentives; they now spend $41,000. (Of that $41,000, $23,000 is spent in the Portland area; the rest is used for commute incentives in other locations.) Prizes range from gift certificates in increments of $25, $50, of $100 for company store or local retailers to $400 for mountain bike purchases or "get-away" weekends.

Carpoolers do not register with the company in advance. Instead, they receive a hangtag from the security guard at the main gate to place in their car for the day that allows them to park in the reserved carpool areas. (The Nike campus consists of a number of buildings, and there are approximately 30 to 40 spaces reserved for carpools at different buildings.)

Carpoolers can find matches through in-house computerized matching. Odekirk stated that keeping the list updated has proved extremely difficult. Portland is in the process of implementing a regional rideshare program, and Odekirk hopes to transfer the matching function to that program once it is implemented. Odekirk said that most carpools form via word of mouth rather than through the rideshare list.

Because there is no registration, Odekirk tracks participation through registration for prize drawings. Anyone who uses an alternative mode to the single-occupant vehicle commute during a given week is eligible to register for the prize drawings. When they register online for the prize drawing, commuters list the number of times they used a particular mode during the week. These figures form the basis for reporting mode splits under Oregon's trip reduction mandate. Odekirk said that in an average week, there are 400 trips made by carpool, meaning that at least 800 people carpooled. The campus has 4,000 employees; there are another 1,100 employees in the metropolitan area. (Although employees at any facility can register for the prize drawing if they carpool, only one other facility has reserved parking.)

Odekirk said she thought there was more potential for fraud under the Nike Bucks program. Under that program, commuters received Nike Bucks vouchers from the security guard when they arrived at work. However, off-campus employees did not have to pass a security guard, so they requested vouchers from a receptionist, who could not verify if they had carpooled. Although there may be some fraud under the current program, because commuting behavior is self-reported and not verified, she thinks the fact that participants are only registering for a chance to win, and are not receiving guaranteed benefits, mitigates against fraud.