5.5.1.5 Transport Demand Management
Transport Demand Management (TDM) is a formal designation for programmes in many countries that improve performance of roads by reducing traffic volumes (Litman, 2003). There are many potential TDM strategies in these programmes with a variety of impacts. Some improve transport diversity (the travel options available to users). Others provide incentives for users to reduce driving, changing the frequency, mode, destination, route or timing of their travel. Some reduce the need for physical travel through mobility substitutes or more efficient land use. Some involve policy reforms to correct current distortions in transport planning practices. TDM is particularly appropriate in developing country cities, because of its low costs, multiple benefits and potential to redirect the motorization process. In many cases, effective TDM during early stages of development can avoid problems that would result if communities become too automobile dependent. This can help support a developing country’s economic, social and environmental objectives (Gwilliam et al., 2004).
The set of strategies to be implemented will vary depending on each country’s demographic, geographic and political conditions. TDM strategies can have cumulative and synergetic impacts, so it is important to evaluate a set of TDM programmes as a package, rather than as an individual programme. Effective strategies usually include a combination of positive incentives to use alternative modes (‘carrots’ or ‘sweeteners’) and negative incentives to discourage driving (‘sticks’ or ‘levellers’). Recent literature gives a comprehensive overview of these programmes with several case studies (May et al., 2003; Litman, 2003; WCTRS and IPTS, 2004). Some major strategies such as pricing and land-use planning are addressed above. Below is a selective review of additional TDM strategies with significant potential to reduce vehicle travel and GHGs.
Employer travel reduction strategies gained prominence from a late 1980s regulation in southern California that required employers with 100 or more employees to adopt incentives and rules to reduce the number of car trips by employees commuting to work (Giuliano et al., 1993). The State of Washington in the USA kept a state law requiring travel plans in its most urban areas for employers with 100 or more staff. The law reduced the percentage of employees in the targeted organizations who drove to work from 72–68% and affected about 12% of all trips made in the area. In the Netherlands, the reduction in single occupant commute trips from a travel plan averaged 5–15%. In the UK, in very broad terms, the average effectiveness of UK travel plans might be 6% in trips by drive alone to work and 0.74% in the total vehicle-km travelled to work by car. The overall effectiveness was critically dependent on both individual effectiveness and levels of plan take-up (Rye, 2002).
Parking supply for employees is so expensive that employers naturally have an incentive to reduce parking demand. The literature found the price elasticity of parking demand for commuting at –0.31 to –0.58 (Deuker et al., 1998) and –0.3 (Veca and Kuzmyak, 2005) based on a non-zero initial parking price. The State of California enacted legislation that required employers with 50 or more persons who provided parking subsidies to offer employees the option to choose cash in lieu of a leased parking space, in a so-called parking cash-out programme. In eight case studies of employers who complied with the cash-out programme, the solo driver share fell from 76% before cashing out to 63% after cashing out, leading to the reduction in vehicle-km for commuting by 12%. If all the commuters who park free in easily cashed-out parking spaces were offered the cash option in the USA, it would reduce vehicle-km travelled per year by 6.3 billion (Shoup, 1997).
Reducing car travel or CO2 emissions by substituting telecommuting for actual commuting has often been cited in the literature, but the empirical results are limited. In the USA, a micro-scale study estimated that 1.5% of the total workforce telecommuted on any day, eliminating at most 1% of total household vehicle-km travelled (Mokhtarian, 1998), while a macro-scale study suggested that telecommuting reduced annual vehicle-km by 0–2% (Choo et al., 2005).
Reduction of CO2 emissions by hard measures, such as car restraint, often faces public opposition even when the proposed measures prove effective. Soft measures, such as a provision of information and use of communication strategies and educational techniques (OECD, 2004a) can be used for supporting the promotion of hard measures. Soft measures can also be directly helpful in encouraging a change in personal behaviour leading to an efficient driving style and reduction in the use of the car (Jones, 2004). Well organized soft measures were found to be effective for reducing car travel while maintaining a low cost. Following travel awareness campaigns in the UK, the concept of Individualized marketing, a programme based on a targeted, personalized, customized marketing approach, was developed and applied in several cities for reducing the use of the car. The programme reduced car trips by 14% in an Australian city, 12% in a German city and 13% in a Swedish city. The Travel Blending technique was a similar programme based on four special kits for giving travel-feedback to the participants. This programme reduced vehicle-km travelled by 11% in an Australian city. The monitoring study after the programme implementation in Australian cities also showed that the reduction in car travel was maintained (Brog et al., 2004; Taylor and Ampt, 2003). Japanese cases of travel-feedback programmes supported the effectiveness of soft measures for reducing car travel. The summary of the travel-feedback programmes in residential areas, workplaces and schools indicated that car use was reduced by 12% and CO2 emissions by 19%. It also implied that the travel-feedback programmes with a behavioural plan requiring a participant to make a plan for a change showed better results than programmes without one (Fujii and Taniguchi, 2005).