How to motivate employees to cycle to work instead of taking the car?
Daily traffic jams, parking problems, noise and pollution are problems that come with the use of cars in general, also when commuting to work. A growing number of companies wants to tackle these problems by stimulating their employees to come to work by bicycle or public transport. But which measures work best in accomplishing this goal? Research done for ASML by TU Delft researchers Maarten Kroesen and Eric Molin shows that combining carrot and stick measures works efficiently: a combination of parking fees and a daily allowance if you do not come by car for example.
ASML expects the number of employees to more than double over the coming seven years. Currently about 50% comes to work by car. The company would like to bring car use back to about 30%, since this ratio of car commuting is not sustainable in the long term; traffic, parking problems, noise and pollution will only get worse. ‘This is why they wanted insight in the expected shifts in the modal split if different measures are implemented’, says Kroesen.
Policy measures
To provide these insights, a choice experiment was set up and administrated in an online survey among employees. It was completed by 5,623 employees. A number of specific policy measures was considered in the research such as: Introducing a (daily) reward for not using the car to travel to ASML; introducing parking costs at ASML; differentiating the travel allowance (up to 20 km) for different modes; increasing the level of service of the train alternative by offering (first class) NS business cards and/or by improving the level of service of the mobility options from the Eindhoven train station to ASML by e-bike or shuttle bus.
Time and costs most influential
‘Amongst other things the study showed that time and costs are most influential in mode choice, the service attributes are less important, such as the size of the shuttle bus’, says Kroesen. ‘And that with the right policy mix (for example the monetary package) a reduction in car share of 10% can be achieved. Also there is still much potential for (e-)bicycle between 0-20 kilometres and also substantial interest in the bicycle plan.’ Kroesen: 'What really surprised me was the high use of e-bikes on longer distances. The average commuting distance of e-bike users is 13 kilometres and even at a distance of 20 kilometres, 1 in 5 employees still uses this mode of transport. Considering that 50% of employees lives within a 20-kilometre radius of work means that the substitution potential of the e-bike in general is greatly underestimated.'
Enough food for thought for ASML, that is now deciding how to move forward and diminish car use. ASML: ‘We are very happy with the results of the survey. They clearly show what we can do to reduce car use. Based on the results, a number of important decisions have been taken. At the same time, the study offers starting points for new measures. For instance, it showed that there is great interest in the concept of Vanpooling, where employees living close to each other can travel to work together in a van. We will explore this measure further in the future.’