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Co-funded by the Intelligent Energy EuropeProgramme of the European Union

PACKAGE

for a succesfull carpoolin

g scheme

CHUMSTHE

For further information please visit:

www.chums-carpooling.eu

The sole responsibility for the content of this document lies with the authors. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union. Neither the EASME nor the European Commission are responsible for any use that may be made

of the informationcontained therein.

The CHUMS (Changing Habits for Urban Mobility Solutions) project focusses on carpooling as an option to address the energy challenge of low car occupancy and the almost half of journeys in cities that cannot be accommodated by conventional public transport modes.

The strategic aim of CHUMS is simple – to “attract car-poolers, match them and retain them”, to keep the numbers rising, and to develop and transfer this proven practice to generate a core sustainable market for carpooling across Europe, so that it becomes a habitual way to travel and a recognised mobility mode for transport planning.

The CHUMS behaviour change strategy includes a Carpooling Week, conducting Personalised Travel Plans which include carpooling options and providing a Mobility Jackpot Lottery to attract people to carpool.

These have all been shown to produce significant behavioural changes in a wide range of places where they have been delivered: increasing car occupancy, reducing car numbers and significantly reducing energy use.

Commuting trips are best suited to carpooling since for the majority of travellers the journey to work is very repetitive with the same route at the same time of day and this helps when trying to match drivers and passengers. Several simulation studies have suggested that more than half of all work trips are pool-able with only small adjustments to route or time of travel. This is why the CHUMS project focused on commuting carpooling.

The particular focus of CHUMS is on commuter trips where on average 70% of trips in the EU are made by car, with over 85% of these commuting car trips having only one occupant.

Introduction

The CHUMS Package for onward take-up 1

The CHUMS approach aims at unlocking maximum carpooling demand and at establishing critical mass of users by delivering three activities, each one reinforcing staff awareness, participation and modal shift to carpooling:

1. Establish a “Carpool Week”2. Provide Personalised Travel Plans (PTP)3. Establish a “Mobility Jackpot” lottery

Each of these measures can be delivered separately, but introduced together as a package of sequential measures will maximise the beneficial synergies between the measures. The benefits of the integrated CHUMS package are greater than the sum of its parts - this is the core of the CHUMS approach.

Delivering CHUMS as a package of measures requires careful consideration of the sequence and timings for delivery of each measure in order to generate strong complementary linkages between measures. The intention is that the Carpool Week will kick start the growth in carpooling by raising awareness of the carpooling service amongst the target group of car drivers. This could accomplished by coordinating the initial mobility jackpot prize with the Carpool Week that will then entice those car drivers who are uncertain, but are motivated by rewards, to give it a try. These actions should help build a critical mass of car-poolers, providing a larger pool of potential carpool options when the Personalised Travel Plans (PTP) are delivered – thus improving the matching rate achieved and further growing the number of potential car-poolers.

Delivering the PTPs while the on-going mobility jackpot is running allows the PTP carpool options to include a reward incentive as a further enticement to consider carpooling. The mobility jackpot is also known to increase retention rates amongst carpool users.

CHUMS promotes workplace carpooling by introducing a unique methodology that has been developed in 5 cities that represent the scale of carpooling and the diversity of mobility mind-sets across Europe: Craiova (RO), Edinburgh (UK), Leuven (B), Toulouse (F) and Perugia (IT).

The CHUMS approach

The CHUMS Package for onward take-up2

considered at each site in order to maximise the impacts of the CHUMS package.

The CHUMS site appraisal tool is available for download from the CHUMS website.

CHUMS has developed a simple and easy to use tool which captures the key contextual factors at a particular site and enables the candidate sites to quickly assess their suitability for carpooling and to indicate the likely impacts of introducing the CHUMS measures. It also identifies the supporting measures that will maximise the impact of CHUMS. The benefit of this is that it can be used to guide implementers towards focussing attention on sites which are more suited to carpooling as well as indicating at a very early stage what supporting measures need to be

Necessary conditions CHUMS is not only about designing or setting up a carpooling scheme – it is focused on better promotion and raising awareness of existing schemes, understanding commuters needs and personalizing travel options which include carpooling, and incentivizing commuters to try carpooling and to continue to carpool through regular prize draws.

DOWNLOAD atwww.chums-carpooling.eu/site-apprais-

al-tool/

When deciding to start your own carpool scheme or to expand an existing one, several aspects must be taken into consideration:

How good is my site for

carpooling?

The term ‘site’ refers to an organisation where the measures are implemented and can include local authorities, universities, private or public companies. Selecting an appropriate site for carpooling or adapting an existing site is crucial in establishing a successful carpooling scheme.


the case of Leuven), while in Perugia, where no existing local or national software existed, our CHUMS partner opted for a turnkey solution from a universal software product or company.

CHUMS recommends to choose the carpool matching software system that can best cater to your site needs. The choice should be based on what is available locally, what can be procured and at what cost, and what the software provider offers in terms of support.

The CHUMS results have clearly shown that, depending on who was implementing and in which type of site (local authority, university, private or public companies) several scenarios could be possible: local in-house software developed by the local or regional authority (as is the case in Toulouse), or there may be software produced by a local private company (as is the case in Craiova). In Edinburgh and Leuven software from a national carpool service provider was used (Liftshare.com in the case of Edinburgh and Taxistop in

Choosing the technology

5. The employer should assign an employee to the role of dedicated local carpool champion. A carpool champion is someone who is an advocate of the scheme and committed to making it a success. The champion should be in a position of authority or somebody that people respect, for example the Chief Executive or a member of the Board.

6. Regular and frequent meetings are required to keep the employer engaged.

When considering implementing CHUMS, the initial discussions with the employer are very important. The main lessons from the demonstration sites when engaging with the employers are:

1. The level of the employer involvement needs to be made clear from the outset.

2. Remember that companies, local authorities or universities take time to commit and approve their support, so make sure that the engagement process is initiated well in advance

3. Flexibility is required in order to fit with business’ own agendas and aims.

4. It is essential that the senior management in the company are committed to the idea and see the beneficial impacts that the measures will have on the company

Engaging with the employers


One study has been concluded that up to 17% of commuters could carpool formally. However, with a few notable exceptions, evidence from sites where well established carpooling services exist, point towards much lower levels of carpool use – typically below 2%.

Several studies have shown that more than three quarters of commuters have positive attitudes towards carpooling but, at the same time, they have no knowledge of other local workplace carpooling schemes.

Typically, more than half of the employees that drive to work have no knowledge of the local carpool scheme that is available to them. This clearly shows the need for consistent, sustained awareness raising actions. In CHUMS this is done mainly through the “Carpooling Week”.


CARPOOL WEEKThe main objective of ‘Carpool Week’ is to simply raise awareness amongst as wide an audience as possible of the existence of a local carpooling scheme. In short, ‘Carpool Week’ comprises of a week-long period of intensive and focused promotion and awareness raising activity to the target group (all employees).

‘Carpool Week’ is replicating the very successful ‘Liftshare Week’ which is the UK-wide event which aims to encourage and enable more people to discover the benefits of car-pooling. It is a tried and tested way to help staff, colleagues and friends to start sharing their cars. In the month following carpool week, results show that double the normal number of carpool registrations can be achieved.

The main message of this action needs to reiterate what the benefits are for the employee by addressing the question “What’s in it for me?” The role of the implementer is to create the theme of the campaign, produce materials that can be shared – can be both physical and virtual – and to ensure consistent positive communications.

The role of the employers is to share the message through the communication materials produced and to commit to the activities suggested.

Multiple channels of communication and promotional activities are necessary in order to achieve the goals of the “Carpool Week”. It also requires a physical and virtual presence with face-to-face contact shown to be particularly powerful.

The following 5 activities have been shown to provide the most effective methods of delivery:

1. Provide stands where information can be spread.

Place them in areas where many employees congregate, such as lunch canteens. Employees also have more time to spare over their lunch period and so are more inclined to stop and engage.

Info booth and give-aways (Edinburgh, UK)

• Ask all employees passing by the information booth how they came to work and if they would consider carpooling

• Hand out brochures and flyers

• Sign employees up to the carpool scheme


• In order to engage passers by the information booth needs to offer something interesting that captures attention. Small gifts work well, such as mint pots, chocolate cake, sweets, branded pens

• Provide extra incentives for those who sign up for carpooling such as branded USB memory sticks, USB car chargers

• Have an interactive activity at the info booth, it draws people to the booth and is good fun! For instance, in Leuven a racing game proved to be a great success as it drew a lot of people towards the booth.

2. Place promotional materials in high visibility areas

Put posters, roll-ups and banners in prominent places where the maximum number of employees will see them.

• Good examples of where to locate posters and roll-ups are at the entrance of the company, in the company canteen, in coffee-break rooms, meeting rooms.

• Put banners near car park entrances and exits and at ticketing machines to target single occupant drivers; this will challenge single occupants at a time where they may have experienced the stress and financial pressures caused by single occupant travel/parking.

3. Be pro-active

When distributing leaflets and flyers to employees do not simply put a pile of leaflets / flyers on the stand at your information booth, instead:

• Send them to all members of staff via the internal post service

• Hand them out to members of staff at the canteen during lunch break and start a conversation/recruit members

• Engage with drivers directly at their cars in the car park

4. Get employer support

Use the company communication channels to promote the Carpool Week.

• Email from the senior management showing their commitment and support for the scheme. This maximises the likelihood that its content is read and not ignored or immediately deleted.

• Get members of staff / carpool champion to promote carpooling at staff meetings / team leader talks

• Include an item in company newsletter

• Spare screens around employment site utilized to display details about Carpool Week

• Promotional news stories placed on the company website / intranet pages

• Company website updated to include a promotional banner

• Social Media presence including tweets from the company’s account regarding Carpool Week

5. Hold daily events

These should be eye-catching and held at various locations around the employment site.

• Meet & Greet among carpoolers to share experiences

• Coffee mornings to get people together and meet prospective sharers

• Host fun events like a carpool quiz or ‘speed dating’

• Eye catching activities in car parks such as a free car wash for carpoolers.

Engaging with employees in the carpark (Craiova, RO)


In general, promoting the financial benefits of carpooling (savings in fuel costs or parking costs) offer the most powerful message.

• Highlighting financial incentives or potential rewards (e.g. the mobility jackpot prizes) has been proven to be particularly effective.

• Promoting the social experience can be a strong motivator for younger groups such as students.

• Where specific issues exist at a site then the messages should be tailored to tap into these; for example where a site has parking capacity issues then highlighting availability of guaranteed parking for carpool users is especially effective.

• Keep the messages in promotional materials simple and to the point.

• Where possible a real life member case study should be included to showcase the experience of someone who is a regular carpool user at the site.

Regardless of the means of communication, there are some common good practices that should be followed:

1. Establish a theme for the promotional campaign and include a slogan. The Toulouse site adopted the “Drive collective” slogan, while Edinburgh used the slogan “Life’s more fun when you share”

2. Stick to the local branding and the carpool scheme’s name in order that employees associate the promotion with the product. For instance the carpool scheme in Edinburgh is known as ‘Tripshare’ and so this should be retained on promotional materials

3. Having raised awareness with the campaign slogan, the promotional campaign itself needs strong messages to persuade employees to consider joining a carpool.

• A final useful message to convey relates to availability of people currently offering seats in car pools in their workplace or in the vicinity. A useful means to achieve this is to produce maps showing origins of carpoolers from the company and example offers. These can be produced as large scale maps for display at information booths or can be included in leaflets/brochure materials distributed to employees.


MOBILITY JACKPOTFinancial incentives are an important way to change the commuting behaviour of employees. It has been estimated that incentives that give employees something extra, such as a subsidy, bonus or prize, can eliminate up to 20% of the daily vehicle trips arriving at work sites (Southern California Rideshare, 2003). Mobility jackpot lotteries in general are additional incentives to encourage people or whole communities to reduce the use of their cars and use public transport, cycling and walking instead. Within CHUMS, the lottery focuses on encouraging carpooling. Entry into the lottery is for those people who carpool, demonstrating an additional benefit that is available.

Based on the lessons learnt from the implementation of the Mobility Jackpot across the 5 CHUMS cities a set of guidelines for implementation have been established for future candidate sites to follow:

Frequency of draw: It is recommended that the Mobility Jackpot draw be held once every 2 months (6 draws per year).

Prize value: It is recommended that the prize value for each draw be between €100 and €200. The exact figure will depend on the frequency chosen, the budget for prizes available, and possibly the type of prize which is offered. This relatively high prize value has been shown to provide a decent incentive to nudge employees towards contemplating carpooling.

Types of prizes: Often national legislation or employer rules prevent the award of cash prizes. Instead of cash, prizes should take the form of gifts, free permits/passes or vouchers for specific commodities.

The experience from CHUMS revealed that sites with more affluent employees were most incentivised by special treats as prizes such as free meal for 2 in a Michelin star restaurant.

Employees at less affluent sites were incentivised by shopping vouchers, technology gadgets such

as smart phones and tablets. In cases where there is little or no budget available for prizes then the prizes will be dictated by the availability of donations or sponsorship. For instance it may be possible to get donations from the local authority in the form of parking passes, bus-passes, bike-share subscriptions, or culture passes allowing free access to art/music/culture events and museums within the City. Alternatively the employer may directly contribute prizes themselves or place criteria on what prizes can be awarded.

Suggested examples for the Mobility Lottery draw (up to €150) include: shopping or fuel vouchers,


PERSONALISED TRAVEL PLANNING

parking or public transport pass, tech gadgets (camera / smart phone / satnav / iPod), a meal for 2 in a local restaurant, a half-day off work (requires employers agreement).

If a prize is specific to particular group (e.g. drivers) it is important that a number of choices should be offered as the prize since a lift receiver will not find a free tank of petrol or a parking pass an attractive prize as they have no car, but they may be motivated by a public transport pass or a tech gadget. In such cases a minimum of three prizes should be offered ensuring that the mix of prizes appeals to both carpool drivers and passengers.

Eligibility Criteria: It is recommended that anyone who simply registers to carpool will become eligible for the next draw. If they continue to have active ride offers or requests or have made confirmed carpool journeys during subsequent months they will be eligible for the draws in those months. This ensures it is relatively easy for non-carpool users to become eligible as barriers to entry for new users are kept to a minimum.

Timing: To maximise exposure and promotion, the first Mobility Jackpot lottery draw should be in the week following ‘Carpool Week’. This allows messages on the additional incentives available for carpooling provided through the mobility lottery to be communicated in the carpool week promotions. It is advised not to hold the first Mobility jackpot in the same week as Carpool week as this results in too high a workload for those delivering the measures. Also it risks excluding those employees registering at the end of the week from being entered in the draw. The subsequent draws will then be at bi-monthly intervals following this first draw.

The CHUMS package aims at demonstrating the sustainability of the carpool services to commuters through personalized travel planning (PTP). A standard PTP includes public transport options, cycling and walking, but in the frame of CHUMS carpooling is also included in the transport plan. There is a growing body of evidence about the effectiveness of providing tailored travel advice, support, information and incentives to people who are open to considering sustainable travel options. Personalised Travel Planning (generally delivered through face-to-face interviews) is a well-established targeted marketing technique that encourages people to overcome the habitual use of the car, enabling more journeys to be made on foot, bike, bus, train or in shared cars. This is achieved through the provision of information, providing incentives and motivating individuals directly, to help them voluntarily make more informed travel choices. Delivering PTP at workplaces rather than in residential households is a cheaper approach to delivery and has encouraged many employees to stop driving their car to and from work in favour of using public transport, cycling and walking. Workplace pilots are also easier to organise, as the target population is contactable through their workplace.

Workplace Personalised Travel Plans are most commonly delivered to individuals using a multi stage approach to:

1. Identify those who are suitable and willing to receive a PTP and establish the personal travel requirements;

2. Generate the PTP information packages;

3. Deliver the personalised plans to the employee during a face-to-face interview to inform them of the options and incentives available to them;

A follow up is usually made to find out if behaviour has changed or to reinforce the options available if not.


Does the CHUMS approach work?

The CHUMS approach was proven to yield significant results and behaviour change in the sites where it was implemented. However, there are two aspects that might be considered as barriers in introducing these measures in any organisation:

• The first one is related to costs of implementation and delivery. How much does CHUMS actually cost? See below a breakdown of costs of each of the CHUMS measures.

• The second one is related to people’s attitudes towards carpooling in general. With the right message these real or perceived barriers can be easily debunked.

It is recommended that traditional delivery of PTP be limited to situations where it was found to be most effective. These situations are when delivered to employees who were undergoing a significant change in their circumstances; e.g. starting a new job, moving office location, moving house. It is also recommended that the process should be simplified to a single stage contact with employees where delivery of personalised travel information is generated during the face-to-face interview utilising available online multi-modal journey planners and carpool booking websites.

For all other employees the alternative is to automate the PTP process by sending employees a link to an online multi-modal journey planner which includes carpooling options, or simply a link to the carpool booking software. From here they can immediately find the travel options including carpool options which meet their specific needs.

The key lesson when using this automated approach is that the e-mail accompanying the link to the journey planner or carpool software needs to be persuasive in motivating the recipient to generate their personal travel plan or to simply find their personalised carpool options.

The content of the e-mail should include a personalised message that highlights benefits which are likely to be of real advantage to the recipient.

It should also contain information on additional incentives specific to carpooling that capture interest and motivate change. In the case of CHUMS, highlighting the existence of the mobility jackpot prize for carpoolers helps provide this.

How much does CHUMS cost?

While it is possible to pick and choose the measures which are implemented at a site, it is recommended that all three CHUMS measures be implemented as a combined package of measures to maximize the synergies and complementary benefits which each measures provides to the others.


The table below presents a summary of the costs that can be expected by a range of different sized candidate sites for their first year of implementing CHUMS measures. This includes costs for all staff time throughout the planning, design and delivery stages as well as materials purchase costs. The total costs represent the costs for combined delivery. For second and subsequent years of implementation at the same sites the costs can be expected to reduce by approximately 25-30% due to the need for less staff time in planning and design activities.

Table 1. Costs for first year implementation of the CHUMS package of measures at different sized sites

Site size CHUMS measure Cost per employee Number of employees Cost

500 employees Carpool Week €5 500 €2500

Mobility Jackpot €3.8 500 €1900

Automated PTP €1 500 €500

TOTAL COST €5065

2000 employees Carpool Week €2.75 2000 €5500

Mobility Jackpot €1 2000 €2000

Automated PTP €0.5 2000 €1000

TOTAL COST €9160




TOTAL COST €10600




TOTAL COST €12800

To maximize return on investment, it is important to make sure that the measures reach the maximum number of employees.

• For the Carpool Week the publicity and media channels used should be the mechanism for reaching as many employees as possible since info booths, events, posters and banners cannot be guaranteed to reach everyone. Employer support in disseminating messages to employees is very helpful in this regard.

• For the Mobility Jackpot the desire is to maximize number of eligible persons by minimizing barriers to entry, but more

important is promoting the existence of the Mobility Jackpot to all employees. Tying it to the Carpool Week promotions provides the most effective way of achieving this.

• For the PTP it is possible to deliver automated PTP messages to 5000 members of staff for the same cost as delivering 15 PTPs through the manual approach. Manual PTP delivery has been shown to have an effectiveness potential of between 4 and 10% in the right circumstances. For the same results the automated PTP would only need to be at best 0.03% effective.


Overcoming people’s reservations about sharing

Across Europe, trends are starting to appear in the attitudes towards carpooling and other shared mobility modes. The popularity of carpooling is increasing and some of the reasons for this can be explained by differing mobility mind-sets, attitudes and perceptions towards this mode of transport. Although carpooling is not a new concept, it is not a transport mode that is used on a large scale. Carpooling is yet to be accepted as an alternative mode of travel in its own right across most of Europe, both by users and by transport planners, policy makers and employers.

The lack of awareness of carpooling is a main barrier to widespread acceptance of the mode. Carpool Weeks are effective at gaining an increase in registrations to carpooling schemes and every year that they take place, they gain more members and requests to share than previous years. This demonstrates the positive effect of merely increasing awareness of carpooling – once people begin to understand the mode, other incentives can encourage them to use it more regularly.

Sharing with people you can trust: When using shared mobility modes the issue of trust arises as a possible barrier. In CHUMS we successfully targeted closed groups, organisations such as local authorities, universities and private or public companies. Using a closed system or scheme can help in reducing the stress of sharing with strangers because of the common connection (same workplace). This provides a ‘minimum trust level’ that enables people to interact and trust each other and can encourage some to consider carpooling as a possible transport option.

Building trust through the matching system: A further solution to the issue of trust comes from the use of ITC technology. Online interaction has changed the way we interact and share information. This also applies to carpooling platforms: the software provides matches for carpoolers and also collects and shares information about these possible matches. Most platforms designed for carpooling include an “online reputation” system, an integrated rating system that enables carpoolers to view information that is relevant when choosing to share a ride with someone (this can include information about smoking, sociability etc.) Another benefit of using a secure platform is the fact that you can choose who to share sensitive information with (e.g. home address) and this helps in overcoming the psychological barriers to carpooling.

Avoiding being let down: Another issue is the reliability of carpooling in the eyes of users. People need to know that they can rely on the driver or passenger to arrive on time, and more important, that they are able to return home. It is clear that when carpooling some circumstances cannot be predicted, such as illness or a work crisis. This can be avoided by offering a ‘guaranteed ride home’ scheme – this is a guarantee that the employer will fund your journey home should your driver unfortunately become unavailable. It has been found that by having this scheme in place, it adds a level of confidence to people to use the scheme, but that an emergency journey is rarely requested. It was actually found that other carpoolers were willing to help out the other employee if this situation arose, and the employers were very rarely required to fund a journey for a user.

Feeling safer: People’s perceptions of personal safety is also an important factor. Carpooling services that offer options only to share a ride with others of the same gender can significantly increase feelings of personal safety and can help people feel more comfortable in using the scheme. This is now a common, and popular, feature on the majority of carpooling platforms.

People are also motivated to change their behaviour, or consider changing their behaviour, by different incentives, such as financial, social or environmental reasons. By focusing promotions and incentives towards the motivations of your specific target group you can increase the relevance and attractiveness of your scheme. For example, if parking is limited, priority parking for carpoolers is a popular incentive.

If the Carpool Week is a proven instrument to raise initial awareness, than the CHUMS Mobility Jackpot offers the extra incentive for possible users of a carpool scheme, while the Personalised Travel Plans help to solidify the choice for carpooling by putting it into a balanced and documented context.


No. Reason / Barrier Solution

1 ‘I can’t carpool because I have small children’

If those children need dropping and collecting from nursery or school, that’s fine. Can that person give someone else a lift to work that lives near to the nursery or school?

2 ‘Carpooling doesn’t suit me because I work shifts’

If they work shifts, there are likely to be lots of other people working the same shift that they do not know about. The shift patterns may vary, but suggest they share every other week or whatever they can manage. 20% of journeys registered on the Liftshare network in the UK are between the hours of 6pm and 12 midnight, so not everyone is 9-5.

3 ‘Nobody lives near me’

They don’t know this unless they have searched. The more members a scheme has the more chance there is of finding a match, but even relatively small schemes offer a good chance of a match even if it means widening the search radius. That match may drive past them to get to the destination, or they may be able to pick others up en-route to help others out.

4 ‘I work flexi-time so can’t carpool’

Most flexi-time based offices have core hours. Suggest this person matches with a colleague once a week when they could both work an agreed time period for example 10-6 just once a week or once a month.

5 ‘I don’t have a car’Carpooling isn’t just for car owners: for those who don’t drive or don’t have access to a car, this could be a perfect solution. There is the ability to search for a lift as well as offer a lift to others.

6‘I don’t want to agree to carpool in case I don’t like my carpool partner’

Carpool members are not obliged to share with anyone they contact or who contacts them. Suggest they try sharing for a few days and if it doesn’t work for them, don’t do it with that person.

7 ‘I need my car during the day’

That’s fine. Offer a lift to someone travelling to the same start point as you or use a pool car for your business trips during the day. You could share the trip one way, or just share on the days that you know you are in the office all day.

8 ‘I share with my partner/spouse’

This is great if they do, but they should still be encouraged to register so that you - as an organisation/region - can monitor what is happening stats-wise. If they are bringing one car to work rather than two, they are doing their bit and can still be part of the wider scheme.

9 ‘I don’t like the idea of sharing with a stranger’

If you operate a closed scheme then your staff will only share with other members of staff. This makes the number of strangers they might find as a match much less of an issue.

10 ‘I don’t need to carpool’ They may not need to, but they could be helping someone else out if they put themselves on the system. They could be offering a lift to someone who can’t otherwise easily get to work.

Table 2 presents 10 of the most common reasons/barriers given by employees as to why carpooling isn’t for them. However, many of the barriers are easily overcome when the correct message is shared with those people. Solutions to the barriers or suggestions to overcome the reasons for not carpooling are provided. These can be used when communicating the benefits and possibilities of carpooling to employees at Carpool Week stands and events or when presenting PTP information to employees.

Table 2. Ten common reasons for not carpooling and suggestions for overcoming these


Since promoting carpooling does not require any new infrastructure, unlike cycling that requires new facilities and infrastructure for parking, a smaller change in behaviour can be more cost effective. However, it is important to recognise that changing habits and behaviours is not always instant and so ongoing support of carpooling is required to build wider awareness and acceptance within a company or amongst a community. CHUMS has shown significantly lower costs associated with 2nd year implementations (around 30% lower), while generating increased impacts. It is anticipated that this trend will continue in 3rd and subsequent years as carpooling becomes embedded in the culture and the steady growth in carpoolers moves towards attaining a critical mass where there is a suitable offer for each new request and a suitable request for each new offer.

The CHUMS approach has been successfully tested and proves that carpooling should be part of the mobility options offered to employees, whether in local authorities, universities or public and private companies. A successful introduction of the CHUMS measures depends on choosing the right site to implement, on using the right technology, on having employers support at all stages and on considered implementation at each step. All barriers, real or perceived, can be overcome by careful planning and by using the right messages for the right targets. Thanks to the proliferation of the sharing economy, now is the time to be investing more in carpooling especially with younger people who are more open to sharing vehicles and other goods and services. Different generations have also been seen to have different attitudes towards different mobility modes, and particularly towards shared mobility.

Millennials (those aged between about 12 and 35) are much more likely to participate in the sharing or access economy compared to Baby Boomers (those aged between about 50 and 70). Millennials’ increased willingness to share mobility may result from their interactions with technology and the online world as most of them have been sharing information online through social media sites for most of their lives. As technology has advanced over recent years so have user needs for mobility services to be more convenient and therefore carpooling should embrace open data and smart phone apps to allow users to identify carpooling options real time. That is the future of carpooling.

ConclusionIntroducing and supporting carpooling through the CHUMS measures is relatively low cost to set up and implement compared to other alternative sustainable transport modes.


Consortium

transport planning specialists

For further information please visit: www.chums-carpooling.eu

The sole responsibility for the content of this document lies with the authors. It does not neces-sarily reflect the opinion of the European Union. Neither the EASME nor the European Commission

are responsible for any use that may be made of the informationcontained therein.

Vectos Ltd (UK)Project Coordinator

The court of the Universityof Aberdeen (UK)

CPA vzw - Taxistop (BE) Transport & Mobility Leuven

Liftshare.com Ltd(UK) European Integrated Projects (RO)

Comune di Perugia (IT)

South East Scotland Transport Partnership (UK)

Syndicat Mixte des Transports en Commun de

l’agglomération toulousaine (FR)

SC IPA SA (RO)

Co-funded by the Intelligent Energy EuropeProgramme of the European Union


for further information please visit: d6.4... · 2016-10-26 · ‘carpool week’ is replicating...

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