Title: Parking Cost and Mode Choices Among Downtown Workers: A Case Study
Author(s): Mehranian, Maria, Martin Wachs, Donald Shoup, and Richard Platkin
Published: 1987 by Transportation Research Record, 1130, pp. 1-5
Online Access: http://pubsindex.trb.org/document/view/default.asp?lbid=282570
Abstract: Two downtown companies were compared in an effort to clarify the relationship between mode choice in the journey to work and employers' policies regarding the subsidization of their workers' parking costs. The two firms were located at the same site, and their employees had access to the same parking facilities. One company provided a partial parking subsidy to about one-third of its employees and no financial assistance to ridesharers or those who commuted by transit. The other firm had a more complex system of subsidies to its employees, providing varying levels of support for solo drivers, carpoolers, vanpoolers, and transit riders. Despite the differences in their commuter subsidy programs, the proportion of employees commuting to work by solo driving was about the same in the two companies. The elaborate subsidy program of the second company resulted primarily in a shift of commuters from transit to carpooling and vanpooling. The second company also spent a great deal more money than the first on the promotion of ridesharing, yet the bulk of its commuter subsidy was expended on paying the parking costs of solo drivers. This countered the effectiveness of its efforts to promote ridesharing and transit use. These findings add to the growing body of literature that shows that it is more cost-effective to promote ridesharing and transit use by eliminating parking subsidies to solo drivers than it is to offer additional subsidies to transit users and ridesharers in a firm that already subsidizes the parking of solo drivers.
Category: Transportation Economics
See other articles by the author(s): Donald Shoup Martin Wachs Maria Mehranian Richard Platkin
Author(s): Mehranian, Maria, Martin Wachs, Donald Shoup, and Richard Platkin
Published: 1987 by Transportation Research Record, 1130, pp. 1-5
Online Access: http://pubsindex.trb.org/document/view/default.asp?lbid=282570
Abstract: Two downtown companies were compared in an effort to clarify the relationship between mode choice in the journey to work and employers' policies regarding the subsidization of their workers' parking costs. The two firms were located at the same site, and their employees had access to the same parking facilities. One company provided a partial parking subsidy to about one-third of its employees and no financial assistance to ridesharers or those who commuted by transit. The other firm had a more complex system of subsidies to its employees, providing varying levels of support for solo drivers, carpoolers, vanpoolers, and transit riders. Despite the differences in their commuter subsidy programs, the proportion of employees commuting to work by solo driving was about the same in the two companies. The elaborate subsidy program of the second company resulted primarily in a shift of commuters from transit to carpooling and vanpooling. The second company also spent a great deal more money than the first on the promotion of ridesharing, yet the bulk of its commuter subsidy was expended on paying the parking costs of solo drivers. This countered the effectiveness of its efforts to promote ridesharing and transit use. These findings add to the growing body of literature that shows that it is more cost-effective to promote ridesharing and transit use by eliminating parking subsidies to solo drivers than it is to offer additional subsidies to transit users and ridesharers in a firm that already subsidizes the parking of solo drivers.
Category: Transportation Economics
See other articles by the author(s): Donald Shoup Martin Wachs Maria Mehranian Richard Platkin