Sustainable commuting strategies

Summary

Perugia Municipality had intended to change the travel habits of its own employees by reducing their reliance on private cars in daily commuting. In this way, the Municipality had chosen a pilot site for which create a scheme of actions to persuade employees in alternative sustainable means of transportation, such as public transport, car pooling, car sharing etc.

Implementing sustainable mobility

After a research and analysis phase, the Municipality elaborated the Home-Work Journey Plan. The activities implemented are: •  ex ante survey campaign and analysis of data resulting from the questionnaires submitted to MUPER employees to make a baseline scenario; •  design of the Home-Work Journey Plan with reference to case of other cities in which they were adopted similar plans; •  study of the restrictive and permissive actions inserted in the home-work travel plan, for example: some adjustment in the routes and timetables of the bus to make this mean of transport more attractive and the promotion of the car pooling option; •  ex post survey campaign and analysis of measure results

Dissemination actions has been implemented in order to communicate the Plan (internal brochure easy to read summarizing the contents of the proposed actions, information campaigns, web site and Metropolitan TV advertisements).

•  To design, implement and incentive a strategy for informing employees of the Municipality about their alternative commuting options. •  To use the Municipality’s example to raise awareness among other public bodies and among the private sector companies operating transport in the historical city. •  To reduce the presence of cars in the city centre due to home-work journeys. •  This measure is an absolute novelty, but the phase of data collection provided the margin of viability.

Progress

The offices of the Perugia's Municipality are currently based in the city centre and a significant number of employees work there. All of these offices have generated a significant car commuting problem for many years, both in terms of the volume of traffic and also the number of cruising vehicles looking for parking places. The habit among employees of using their private cars to commute has been an increasing practice for many years and the Municipality has a new policy to reverse this trend. The measure develops an awareness raising strategy for employees of the Municipality in order to encourage the use of public transport or other alternative transport modes, such as car pooling. This Plan has an innovative impact in the CiViTAS pilot area because the Municipality offices are based in the city centre with almost 600 employees.

Outcomes

The main result is a positive and tangible change in employees’ commuting travel patterns and a greater satisfaction among employees with their commuting journeys. 

The short/medium term aim is to increase the number of employers adopting travel Plan. It’s expected to have an increase of reduction in car fuel consumption and emissions and of parking availability for other groups of car users. A longer term result is also expected to be a change in the ability for staff to work at home or at other remote sites.