With the motivations of helping the environment, lowering traffic congestion, and saving on parking lot maintenance, some German firms are beginning to use "company traffic plans," a concept pioneered in the Netherlands.
In such a plan, already adopted by about 10 percent of Dutch companies, all traffic movements associated with an individual firm are collected in a data base covering deliveries and the daily flow of staff and customers. From that base, plans with specific targets, measures, and time limits are worked out to reduce the private car traffic associated with the company.
The Otto mail order firm of Hamburg, with 7,500 employees, now subsidizes a monthly public transit pass for employees, to bring its cost down by half to DM70 ($42). Lufthansa, the major German airline, has done the same.
Other alternatives are also being pursued. Employees who ride their bicycles to work now have space for their bikes close to their job sites; in the past, bikes (like cars) had to be left a long walk away in a huge company parking lot. Such simple improvements have resulted in some 700 Lufthansa employees now coming to work by bike.
To encourage carpools, some companies are also trying out the "guaranteed ride home" concept, which has the employer pick up the tab for a taxi or rental car if the employee misses his or her carpool ride because of working late.
However, such successes are still the exception rather than the rule. On average, more than 60 percent of German income earners still use their own car to get to work; statistically, an average of only 1.2 persons ride in cars on home-to-work trips; and company parking is usually free.
A recent Employers' Association workshop in Cologne described the enormous savings that could be obtained in parking lot operating costs alone if companies would offer, and employees accept, the idea of commuting to work with public transit. Annual operating costs for a company parking space in Germany are estimated at $760 for open air and $2,150 for covered parking.
And the benefits are not only economic. A government study presented at the meeting noted that the pollution and congestion impacts associated with commuting trips by private cars are generally overlooked as an environmental problem.
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