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Final Report

Smart Commute Initiative

Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton, Ontario

This final results report on the Smart Commute Initiative summarizes the work completed, the final results and the lessons learned from the implementation of the project, which started May 2004 and finished March 2008. The main sections of this final results report are Project Results, Lessons Learned and Future Enhancements.

Introduction

The Smart Commute Initiative (SCI) was a cooperative effort involving the Regional Municipalities of Durham, Halton, York and the cities of Mississauga, Toronto and Hamilton. The supporting municipalities were Burlington, Milton, Oakville, Brampton, Caledon, Markham, Richmond Hill, Newmarket and Vaughan. The objective of the $6.7 million project was to implement workplace-based transportation demand management by establishing new transportation management associations and a regional coordinating body, the Smart Commute Association (SCA).

The initiative was funded in large part by Transport Canada’s Urban Transportation Showcase Program, with additional funding from the municipalities and the private sector. The (SCI) was comprised of six main activities:

• Establishment of the Smart Commute Association
• Development and implementation of transportation management associations (TMAs)
• Development and delivery of a ride-matching service (the Carpool Zone)
• Development and delivery of a guaranteed ride home program
• Monitoring, evaluation and reporting
• Marketing, education and outreach

Initiated in 2004 and completed in March 2008, the goal of SCI was to work with various stakeholders to relieve traffic congestion, improve air quality and health, and reduce emissions by promoting various commuter options such as carpooling, cycling, walking, and shuttles, and encouraging teleworking. Under the direction of the Smart Commute Association, a network of non-profit Transportation Management Associations was established to deliver the program at the local levels through employer-based transportation demand management.

All of the initiatives established during the program have continued to function after the demonstration project came to end and most continue to grow. Ten transportation management associations (TMAs) were established in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), and more are planned. An example of success was the establishment of an online Carpool Zone service and that resulted in the reduction of about 10,000 cars per day and a corresponding reduction of 17,500 tonnes of GHG emissions.

Project results

Results are reported based on the six activities as follows:

Smart Commute Association: The Smart Commute Association (SCA) was directed by a Steering Committee of municipalities and acted as the central coordinating body. The SCA developed most of the programming for the local Transportation Management Associations (TMAs). The SCA developed the Smart Commute TMAs toolkit. The toolkit was used by the TMAs to encourage employers to establish carpooling, teleworking, cycling, walking, transit, shuttles, vanpooling and alternative work hours. The toolkit also included suggestions for measuring results. It included theory, guides, facts, templates and promotional items for each mode of transportation and supporting elements. Each TMAs had the flexibility to tailor programming from the Toolkit, as well as to create customized marketing and outreach programs.

Transportation Management Associations: Ten local TMAs were established during the pilot project and more are planned. The SCA and the TMAs operated as a network to provide guidance on how to develop a carpooling program, encourage cycling and walking, arrange shuttles, provide telework opportunities, arrange emergency rides home, and others. TMA activities were directed to employers. Services included analyses of current conditions, plan development customized to employers’ needs, a suite of tools and incentives for employees, a suite of commuter benefits, links to municipal services such as transit passes, and measuring the success of the activities. The toolkit used by the TMAs included templates, standards, best practices and others (refer to  http://cms1.smartcommute.ca/tma_toolkit.).

The recruitment of employer members or partners to local Smart Commutes involved a considerable amount of effort. More than 6,000 organizations were contacted representing over 530,000 employees, and over 120 recruitment meetings were held. By the end of the project, measures to reduce single occupancy car commuting had been implemented at more than 200 worksites with over 145,000 employees. Early results from these efforts showed thousands of tonnes of reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and the elimination of 1.2 million commuter trips per year.

Carpooling: The Carpool Zone, the major effort of the Smart Commute Initiative, was officially launched in November 2005 in the City of Toronto. The launch date, two weeks before the Ontario Ministry of Transportation opened high-occupancy vehicle lanes on highways 403 and 404, generated wide media coverage. While some employers had offered carpool organizing services before the Smart Commute Initiative, the Carpool Zone organized commuters interested in carpooling from across the Greater Toronto Area. Carpool Zone was heavily promoted by means of radio advertising. By the end of the project, more than 6,000 users (more than 500 carpools) had registered with the service, and registration was increasing by 125 commuters per week.

Users could register ( http://www.carpoolzone.ca) as members of the public, or as employees with organizations that had signed on with their local Smart Commute or TMA. The site was also upgraded over the course of the Smart Commute Initiative with new features such as route-based matching, making it one of the most sophisticated carpool programs in the world. Initially launched in English, information was eventually made available in English, French, simplified Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Punjabi.

Emergency service: The Emergency Ride Home program is a program that helps commuters to smart commute to work while providing a way to get home in urgent circumstances. The program was tailored to individual employers. The online user interface ( http://www.emergencyridehome.ca) was completed in March 2007 and was integrated with the Carpool Zone website. Evaluation of the service occurred through short questions answered on the website after a ride was taken. The program was mainly based on taxi service, though some local Smart Commutes have negotiated deals with car rental agencies.

The templates for delivering the Emergency Ride Home (ERH) program included a guide for implementing the program, a taxi vendor contract, guidelines for commuter usage, a tracking database and promotion brochures. The template was used because a region-wide ERH program was not a feasible because each local municipality licensed taxicab companies separately, creating a patchwork of companies and fares across the region.

Monitoring, evaluation, and reporting: The Smart Commute Initiative maintained (and maintains) a database of participants (mainly through  http://www.carpoolzone.ca) and conducted employee surveys at participating employers and regional attitudinal surveys.

Regional monitoring included the entire Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton, while local monitoring was conducted at the employer level. In each case, a set of baseline indicators was recorded, and follow-up measurements were made. A commuter attitudes survey was conducted in May 2005 to provide baseline data for measuring the success of Smart Commute, as well as for crafting of messages and designing programs. In order to set comparable baselines across employers and TMAs , data collection templates were created. These included a template employee survey with a methodology and analysis guide, a vehicle and occupancy count worksheet, and tools for conducting a site assessment. The package included an annotated guide to assist TMAs in presenting baseline results to employers. A web-based survey provider was also contracted for easy implementation of surveys, and a spreadsheet developed to automatically calculate results from completed surveys. A total of 40 employers were surveyed in the Smart Commute Initiative.

Marketing, education and outreach: This activity provided credibility to local initiatives and included branding, media relations, producing print and web materials for the program, purchasing advertising (i.e. radio spots), helping the TMAs market programs directly to employees, and coordinating promotional events. All tools and templates, including the Carpool Zone and smartcommute.ca websites, were created based on the established brand. Each TMA uniquely integrated the branding and templates into their own operations.

Over the course of the project, a number of special public and media events were held to announce various stages of implementation in the Smart Commute Initiative. In total, more than 67 million media impressions were earned.

Localized outreach was conducted frequently by TMAs and the SCA through attendance at or organization of employer and community events. Over three years, more than 240 promotional and outreach events took place involving Smart Commute – from conferences to networking breakfasts to employer transportation fairs.

The Smart Commute Initiative reduced the environmental impact of single-occupant vehicle use in the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton by an estimated 14,600 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions for the final year (including follow-up surveys completed in 2007-08). Impacts on the transportation system were reduced by 63,439,000 vehicle-kilometres in the final year of the Smart Commute Initiative. The Smart Commute Initiative has resulted in about 10,000 fewer cars per day used for commuting.

SCI was initiated through Transport Canada’s Urban Transportation Showcase Program and has continued past the end of the program with support from Metrolinx (Greater Toronto Transportation Authority) and area municipalities.

Lessons learned

Of all the SCA activities, the biggest gains came from the facilitation of carpooling and ridesharing. Indicators showed that the Carpool Zone was recognizable by one in every six GTHA commuters within a year. Extensive media coverage of Smart Commute and the introduction of high-occupancy vehicle lanes on sections of Highways 403 and 404 had a positive impact on converting single-occupant vehicle drivers to carpoolers.

It was learned that local customization is needed for implementing changes in an area of more than six million people and several municipal governments. While services may have been delivered through various operating models that differed from TMA to TMA , they largely appeared coordinated and synchronized to the general commuting public.

Evaluating the project benefits from the Smart Commute Initiative for Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton was challenging because the timing of Smart Commute did not coincide with major traffic surveys conducted at five-year intervals. Standardizing data collection and review across the region was an important step for ensuring that results are comparable between various employers and TMAs . It was learned that proper assessment of transportation demand management initiatives requires a longer timeframe of sustained implementation to assess effectiveness – at least two years. This would allow sufficient time for a program to integrate into normal business operations, and provide better insight into whether Smart Commute has been able to effect permanent change.

Measuring project activities, such as media impressions, events and surveys, was fairly simple, but time-consuming. However, except for the Carpool Zone, it was not easy linking the Smart Commute Initiative to a decrease in single-vehicle commuting. Fluctuations in gas prices, changing social and environmental concerns, media coverage and employee or workplace relocation are all significant factors that affect commuter behaviour, and could have assisted with Smart Commute efforts, or made demand management activities more difficult. This challenge is not unique to the Smart Commute Initiative, but applies to transportation demand management programs across North America.

The measuring activities of the Smart Commute Initiative demonstrated that the project had indeed had an impact and linked reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to SCI activities. Quantitative results from Smart Commute proved the value of the program to many local politicians.

Future enhancements

The Smart Commute Initiative (SCI) is positioned to continue and flourish now that Transport Canada’s Urban Transportation Showcase Program contribution has ended. SCI is expected to continue to grow by adding more TMAs and more employers, improving programs and service delivery, and possibly implementing demand-management strategies for trips other than to and from the workplace. It is expected SCI and its model of cooperation between municipalities and employers developed under the UTSP will continue.

As of January 1, 2008 the Smart Commute Initiative became a full-fledged, ongoing program of Metrolinx (the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority) – the provincial body tasked with planning for and enhancing the GTA and Hamilton transportation system. Metrolinx is a brand new organization, and Smart Commute is the sole public program offered. The partnership with municipalities continues, as Metrolinx has assumed the Smart Commute Association and central coordination role, while also providing funding for the TMAs along with local municipalities.

Summary and conclusions

The Smart Commute Initiative demonstration project established a means for participating regions and municipalities to customize templates, procedures and promotional tools to move commuters away from single- family use towards more environmentally friendly modes of travel such as carpooling, cycling, and public transit.

Measuring activities showed that Smart Commute had had an impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The initiative reduced traffic by 10,000 vehicles per day and reduced the environmental impact of single-occupant vehicle use in the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton by an estimated 14,600 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in the final year alone.

Quantitative results from Smart Commute proved the value of the program to many local politicians. As an effective and proven means of reducing traffic congestion and emissions, the Smart Commute Initiative grew to become a necessary element of municipal and regional service delivery in the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton.

The Smart Commute Initiative has become an ongoing program of Metrolinx. Without the support of the Urban Transportation Showcase Program and the positive working relationship between the municipalities of the GTA and Hamilton, the establishment and development of the Smart Commute Initiative and the transition of the program to become a permanent feature of Metrolinx may not have been possible.

For More Information

For more information on the "Smart Commute Initiative" project, please visit
www.smartcommute.ca or contact:

Ryan Lanyon
Team Lead, Smart Commute
Metrolinx (Greater Toronto Transportation Authority)
20 Bay Street, Suite 901
Toronto, Ontario M5J 2N8
Telephone: 416 874-5933
Fax: 416 874-5901
Email: ryan@smartcommute.ca 

For posted information about this project, visit the UTSP Website Case Study Library.

Date modified:

2010-07-13

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