37% of French ski resorts meet this criterion.

In the mountains, the country and the outskirts of major cities, people often cover long distances commuting to/from work. Workplace lift sharing schemes help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save money, improve human relations and give a better image of the company: shared benefits for both the company and the employees.

It’s possible to save money on commuting trips to work! On average cars mobilise up to 17% of an average household’s budget, in between food (16%) and housing (22%). Going to work in your car is estimated to cost up to £3000 a year for a 20Km trip to/from work (source: ADEME). Considering those figures it makes real sense for a company or a local authority to set-up an internal lift sharing scheme or group transport for it’s employees

Why?

Here is a list of advantages for setting up a workplace lift sharing system.
For users:

• Less stress
• Friendlier
• Punctuality
• Lower travel costs

For companies:

• Environmentally friendly company
• Helps control and reduce employee travel costs
• Better productivity thanks to greater punctuality
• Lower parking costs
• Easier hiring
• More relaxed atmosphere at work
• Socially responsible company.
• Rationalisation of professional travel costs and company cars expenses.

How?

A transport survey
The aim of such a survey is to assess the employee travel habits, generally or in a specific area and also to evaluate employee’s awareness on lift sharing. Main aims:

• List the different trips
• List which modes of transport are used (shuttle buses, company cars, park & ride, etc.) to organize employee travel more effectively.

 Informing the staff:

• Notice boards & posters
• Articles in the in-house newsletter
• Internal memorandums
• Reports on the intranet, e-mails.

Setting up the service

• Informal schemes: within SME’s, lift sharing offers and grouping proposals can be done informally and personally, for example between colleagues and friends
• Automated schemes: within larger companies, local authorities, or even groups of companies the use of a specific software is a better option.

Company management or local authorities can decide to introduce lift-sharing schemes for their staff. They will then give the employees the necessary means (human and material aid) to put this into practice: specific premises for the lift sharing ads, reserved parking spaces, access to internal communication or even lift sharing allowances.

Statistics

• In 2004 annual car related costs (purchase, petrol, maintenance and car insurance) were on average €4536 for petrol car owners and €7324 for diesel car owners!
• In and around Paris where commuting trips are over 15 km, car travel represents 25% of total trips to work (800 000 trips/day). It is estimated that only 400,000 people share a vehicle to go to work on a daily basis.
• Traffic accidents are the main cause of fatal accidents (57%)within the labour accidents, which includes travel to/from work.

Specificities of lift sharing in the mountains

Local authorities and tourist office employees as well as lift services staff can organise lift-sharing schemes or shuttle services to go to/from work. This would help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as decrease congestion on steep mountain roads.

Criteria for award of logo

Criterion : The local council, the lift services and the tourist information office have introduced lift sharing schemes (the AND criteria are necessary, the OR criteria are optional but it is necessary to meet at least one of those criteria)

• OR: A website or a notice board is used to organise lift sharing schemes. (3 ads per week at least)
• OR: A shuttle-bus service gets the employees to their workplace in the morning and get them back home in the evening.

This issue involves:

• The tourist information office
• The local council
• The lift services

My resort was awarded this logo if:

The local council, the lift services and the tourist information office have set-up an internal transport scheme for carpooling. Free, or at low fees, shuttles take local employees and seasonal workers to the resort. These shuttles filled to more than 50% of their capacity, will take the seasonal workers from home to their workplace and back, all schedules adapted to their working hours.

Links

• http://www.google.org/recharge/overview.html