A graduate student in the UBC Sustainability Scholars program teamed up with the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) to find out how to get VPD employees who commute to work to ditch their cars and pedal instead.
The study, developed in collaboration with UBC Sustainability, surveyed employees of a VPD campus located in an industrial zone with little pedestrian access and only two semi-regular transit lines.
The researchers engaged employees in order to identify “steps in promoting more sustainable commuting options.”
Based on feedback from 400 staff members surveyed, 70 per cent reported driving alone in multi-occupancy vehicles, while only 11 per cent carpooled. Another 11 per cent used public transport and only three per cent reported walking or biking.
Overall, these results align with Canada-wide commuter trends, with 82 per cent driving to work across Canada in 2010 compared to 12 per cent who used public transit, and 6 per cent who walked or cycled.
Navigating both the VPD’s Code Green program as well as the City of Vancouver’s Greenest City 2020 Action Plan, researchers found that VPD employees would be most likely to consider cycling to work if greater infrastructural and institutional resources were in place.
Indeed, the three most frequent responses to factors that would help employees consider biking to work were “having secure and convenient parking facilities, a guaranteed ride home, and a vehicle to use during the day.”
Financial incentives would play a part as well. Companies offering all or a percentage of fares for public transport or a public bike share system (such as the one Vancouver will launch this spring) would provide a greater incentive to diversify commuter options.
According to the report, “an integrated program that includes incentives for biking can increase biking rates by up to 20 per cent, half of which comes from vehicle commuters.”
In Toronto, for example, city staff are able to participate in a program that allows workers to convert biked kilometers to greenhouse gas emissions saved and calories burned, quantifying the benefits of biking.
Participation in a bike to work week event, such as the annual Vancouver bike to work week, may be another such incentive, researchers suggested.
Starting May 30, bike to work week offers groups and individuals the opportunity to register and log their cycling kilometers for prizes, allowing workers to feel part of a wider civic community and to promote team building within their companies.
The UBC study continues on a previous collaboration between UBC Sustainability and the VPD, in which a UBC graduate student explored opportunities to change patrol officers’ car-idling behaviours in order to reduce emissions and fuel costs.
Arman Kazemi, 14 April, 2016