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7. TDM Definition, Overview and Rationale

TDM Definition, Overview and Rationale

This section defines TDM, provides an overview of common measures, and explains the benefits:

• What is transportation demand management (TDM)?
• What activities are included in TDM?
• Why do we need TDM?

What is transportation demand management (TDM)?

The following describes the what, why and how of TDM.

Image transcript:

• WHY? - Purpose of travel: Work, school, shopping, recreation.
• WHEN? - Time of travel: Peak/off-peak, daytime/evening, weekday/weekend
• WHERE? - Travel destination: Block, Neighbourhood, Community, city.
• HOW? - Travel mode: Walk or bike, public transit, car - drive/ride, telecommunications.

When people talk about TDM they usually are referring to urban passenger travel, rather than intercity travel or freight movement. However, the concept of TDM is also applicable to those areas.

What activities are included in TDM?

The main types of TDM measures are:

• Education, promotion and outreach
• Travel incentives and disincentives 

These are complemented by:

• Sustainable travel options
• Supportive land use practices

Together, these four categories of measures represent an integrated approach to mobility management (a broad term encompassing any strategies that can make transportation systems more efficient).

Education, promotion and outreach

These TDM measures raise awareness, improve understanding and build positive attitudes about sustainable transportation choices.

• Branding and positioning measures shape social and individual perceptions of different travel modes, and remove biases against more sustainable choices.
  Example: Canadian Urban Transit Association - Visibility, Image and Positioning
• Information and education measures enhance people’s understanding of different travel choices, and the positive or negative effects of their decisions.
  Example: Équiterre - Transportation Cocktail Campaign
• Targeted marketing measures help individuals or groups to fully understand their personal options, and offer them incentives to travel more sustainably.
  Example: TransLink - TravelSmart
• Special events raise awareness of travel options and encourage people to try them. Examples include commuter challenges, transportation fairs, bike-to-work weeks, or two-for-one transit fare days.
  Example: Commuter Challenge
• Recognition and rewards encourage continued TDM leadership and success by employers, institutions and interest groups.
  Example: City of Ottawa - Bruce Timmermans Cycling Awards

Travel incentives and disincentives

These TDM measures offer individuals a tangible benefit or disbenefit related to the use of one or more travel modes.

• Personal services could include ridematching, guaranteed ride home programs, and traveller information services.
  Examples:
  • Smart Commute - Carpool Zone
  • City of Calgary - Regional Carpool Program
• Road or motor vehicle use pricing measures increase or redistribute the costs of car use. Examples include parking fees, road tolls, mileage-based car registration fees, or pay-as-you-go car insurance.
  Example: London, England - Congestion Charging
• Transit pricing measures can make transit more affordable. Examples include reduced fares for seniors, discounted monthly passes, time-based transfers, or free transit in downtown cores.
  Example: Toronto Transit Commission - Metropass Discount Plan
• Workplace-based measures make commuting less costly and stressful. Examples include payroll-deduction transit passes, preferential carpool parking, flexible working hours or telework.
  Example: Agence métropolitaine de transport - Allégo Program
• School-based measures encourage students (and their parents) to leave their cars at home. Examples include universal transit passes for post-secondary students, active and safe routes to school programs, or walking school buses.
  Examples:
  • Universal Transit Passes in Canada
  • Resource Conservation Manitoba - Active and Safe Routes to School

Sustainable travel options

These measures complement TDM by strengthening the supply of sustainable travel options (e.g. walking, cycling, transit, ridesharing). They can make travel by those modes faster and more comfortable, secure and enjoyable.

• Innovative travel services that add new choices to the menu of available travel options. Examples include car sharing clubs, station cars, or vanpooling services.
  Example: Car Sharing Canada
• Transit service improvements that increase the speed, comfort or convenience of transit services. Examples include new or extended routes, express or limited-stop services, more frequent service, or transit priority measures to enhance service reliability.
  Example: Region of Waterloo – iXpress Bus Project
• Infrastructure changes that improve travel options. Examples include putting bike racks on buses, improving sidewalks and other pedestrian linkages, creating on-road or off-road cycling routes, building park-and-ride lots, or reserving roadway lanes for use by carpools and/or transit vehicles in peak periods.
  Example: TransLink - Central Valley Greenway

Supportive land use practices

These measures complement TDM by influencing the density, diversity and design of urban development. They can minimize the need for travel, reduce trip lengths, enable effective and affordable transit service, and make walking and cycling more attractive.

• Regional planning practices combat sprawl and foster compact communities by encouraging intensification and infill development. Examples include growth management plans or urban development boundaries.
  Example: City of Kamloops - TravelSmart
• Area-specific planning practices make walking, cycling, ridesharing and transit more convenient and comfortable. Examples include parking management strategies, transit-oriented development incentives, urban design guidelines, or zoning by-laws that promote mixed-use developments.
  Example: Mont-Saint-Hilaire - Village de la Gare
• Site design practices encourage the use of sustainable transportation options. Examples include direct pedestrian connections and secure bicycle parking.
  Example: Canadian Institute of Transportation Engineers - Canadian Guide to Promoting Sustainable Transportation Through Site Design

Why do we need TDM?

In most Canadian communities, the demand for personal mobility is growing faster than population levels. Many cities recognize that they lack the money, land and public support they would need to meet future travel needs simply by building and widening roads. Instead, they are aiming to proactively shape travel demands so they can be served - efficiently, effectively, equitably and sustainably - with a careful balance of transit, road and pathway networks. This means that TDM will be an increasingly important part of sustainable transportation systems in Canada.

If we apply TDM successfully, our communities will benefit from an enhanced quality of life: lower traffic congestion, fewer emissions, improved public health and safety, greater economic competitiveness, and increased flexibility in the face of fossil fuel shortages. These are the well known benefits of sustainable transportation.

It is true that sustainable transportation systems also depend on our ability to make the right investments in transportation infrastructure. But TDM gives us the ability to maximize our return on those investments, and it has other unique benefits that infrastructure cannot offer:

• It can change travel patterns in a more affordable and flexible manner, and do so in a shorter time frame.
• It can actively defer or eliminate the need for new infrastructure by eliminating trips, reducing trip lengths, and shifting trips out of congested corridors and peak hours.
• It maximizes personal mobility choices by ensuring that individuals are aware of their travel options, understand how to use them, and are willing to do so.

Date modified:

2010-02-17

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