EVALUATION OF EMPLOYEE TRIP REDUCTION PROGRAMS BASED ON CALIFORNIA'S EXPERIENCE WITH REGULATION XV

Abstract

This report summarizes the results of an evaluation of employer-based trip reduction (ETR) programs, carried out by the ITE Technical Council Committee on TDM Effectiveness. The evaluation is based on California's experience with Regulation XV to date. As such, the report must be qualified with two caveats. First, the evaluation focuses only on regulatory initiatives, commonly known as Trip Reduction (ETR) Programs (also called Employee Commute Options or ECO Programs). It does not deal with other means of reducing traffic congestion and vehicle emissions, such as voluntary compaigns to reduce automobile use and a host of public policies, ranging from high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes and the pricing of congested facilities to influence travel habits, to the use of market incentives to reduce the number of polluting vehicles. It is important to realize that ETR programs are but a subset of a much wider family of traffic mitigation and transportation control strategies, collectively known as Travel Demand Management (TDM). Secondly, the focus of this evaluation is on region-wide effects.