Smart Commute

Have you ever considered the impact that everyone’s daily commute has on the environment? What about the financial benefits of carpooling to work? - Exploring different commute choices to work such as cycling, carpooling and transit makes environmental and financial sense. It’s just smart. Very smart. The University Health Network has been very interested in sustainable transportation for a number of years. So we were very happy to learn about Smart Commute and the expertise it would bring to the table. So right away we reached out to them to see how we could work together and we could learn from their experience. Smart Commute is a program which encourages employees to take alternative modes of transportation to work. So whether it’s biking or walking, public transit or even carpooling, we encourage employees to find ways of getting to work that is better for the environment and their own health and well being. Smart Commute primarily educates and encourages employees at our company on how to commute to work in a greener way. So given that our office location is in the suburbs near a major highway, we focused on using high occupancy vehicles. So Smart Commute has helped us implement our carpool program and our vanpool program to achieve that. The role of Smart Commute becomes even much greater because we need to have an organization that ties all the employers in a given area to give and promote more options for our employees. Basically Smart Commute provided us with an opportunity to not have to reinvent the wheel. There are existing programs and existing supports in the community that we can leverage with a minimal impact on our own resources that will allow us to meet our goals to be providing smarter, more active modes of transportation for people coming to and from work. So we wanted an organization like Smart Commute to assist us in our strategy as we were moving resources from one part of the city to the other. There are a lot of challenges that people go through in terms of the commute and other aspects of the transportation piece. We felt Smart Commute would be one organization that would help us, you know, move people from Toronto to another location at York Mills Centre. One of unique things that we have is our partnership with our neighbour SNC Lavalin where we actually run a shuttle, a direct shuttle from our buildings here at 191 The West Mall to the Go Train station and also to the TTC station so that saves employees a bit of time and provides them with an added benefit to the program. They’ve come in here for Lunch and Learns, they’ve done bicycle repair workshops for our staff, they’ve done bicycle safety clinics for us, they’ve done carpooling clinics for us, like, I mean, if I had to go out and pay a consultant for that kind of time, there is no way we could afford it, you know, for a business our size. We have with Smart Commute support been able to run a very successful transportation demand management program without having to hire additional resources to support the program. If you’ve got four staff going to the same meeting and they’re all taking different vehicles, you’re paying mileages for four people, but if you’ve got those four people traveling in one car, it’s one mileage rate to cover that vehicle. So it makes huge economical sense. It’s really made a difference in my workplace and I think the biggest challenge is getting companies to understand that this is not strictly a sustainability issue, it’s also a quality of work life balance piece. It also has to be considered from a financial point of view because when people are happier and healthier they are more productive and if you can partner with an organization like Smart Commute, it just makes it so much more powerful and gives you so many more resources. The support from the Smart Commute representatives is second to none. They are engaging when they come to McMaster to host workshops and lunchtime learning events. It’s seriously contagious and it impacts the people who take part. - So what are you waiting for? Join the companies in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area that have already discovered how Smart Commute can work for your business. -END-