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TDM + Local Bike Shops = ❤️

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Bicycle advocacy powerhouse People for Bikes recently shared a great blog post highlighting the mutual interests of transportation demand management (TDM) and local bike shops.

From TMA’s & TMO’s to universities, enterprises and municipalities, organizations concerned with shifting commuter behavior usually promote biking as a great alternative to single occupancy vehicle (SOV) commuting. In the TDM industry, we know bikes take up less space on roads and in parking lots, cut carbon emissions, and create happier commuters.

Local bike shops are also well aware of all these advantages of biking over driving, so for TDM programs looking for partners to help promote and empower bike commuting, local bike shops are a match made in transportation heaven.

The People for Bikes article mentions the success that our partner Sonos has had with their earn-a-bike program for employees, including partnering with local bike shops. The University of Louisville has also implemented a similar program for students who can trade parking passes for bikes.

When it comes to cycling-related TDM challenges and incentives, local bike shops are great resources for collaborations like prize donations and event leadership. Bike shops are eager to become known as the go-to location for local cyclists, especially new cyclists, and are often willing to be creative partners in bike-related TDM programming.

Here’s a great success story from the People for Bikes post:

Ginny Politz owns Bikesport in Trappe, Pennsylvania. When the Greater Valley Forge TMA approached her seeking prizes to distribute to local winners of the National Bike Challenge, Politz’s enthusiasm was instant. “I said ‘Yes, and why don’t we host a wine and cheese event to kick off the competition?'”

Bikesport’s early buy-in has paid off. “We are the only bike shop member, so they send everything our way. If they have a corporation contact them and say ‘we’d like to do a Lunch and Learn bike program,’ I get an email introducing me as the solution.”

Read more at the People for Bikes blog …

RideAmigos to Host Online Conference Feb 8th

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CommuteCon 2017

Wednesday, February 8, 2017
10 AM – 2 PM Pacific / 1 PM – 5 PM Eastern

Designed to be a fun, informative, and accessible opportunity for learning and collaboration, CommuteCon will feature impact-focused sessions with industry leaders, relevant topics, and opportunities to interact.

Have we mentioned – it’s FREE!

The half-day online format makes it easy to join from anywhere, without having to give up an entire day or make elaborate travel plans. If your work (or play) relates to commuter management, transportation demand management, mobility, parking management, sustainability, or employee benefits, CommuteCon should be on your must-attend list for 2017.

Mark your calendars now!

Registration and schedule coming soon.

CommuteCon Biker Bar

Featured Speakers

Susan Shaheen, Co-Director, Transportation Sustainability Research Center
UC Berkeley

Steve Raney, Executive Director, Smart Mobility
Joint Venture Silicon Valley

Kent Epperson, Director of Traffic Solutions
Santa Barbara County Association of Governments

Phillip Kobernick, Sustainability Project Manager
County of Alameda

Justin Mog​, ​Assistant to the Provost for Sustainability Initiatives
University of Louisville

Jamie Jarvis, Transportation Demand Manager
Stanford Research Park

Peter Williamson, Employee Outreach Coordinator
Rideshare.org

Aaron Gaul, UrbanTrans North America
Century City Transportation Management Organization

David Weisman, Director of Business Development
Scoop

More To Come!

Program Highlights

  • Shifting behaviour with prizes & competition
  • Working with Scoop, Zipcar & Lyft in your community
  • Creating impact with Bike to Work  Day
  • Managing employer commuter programs
  • Employee outreach: Leveraging peer to peer relationships
  • Latest in Mobility Legislation
  • Moving the needle with Parking Cash-out Programs
  • And More …

To make sure you receive future CommuteCon announcements, sign up for our newsletter.

RideAmigos Featured with Transportation Techies

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Here at RideAmigos we’re not just interested in selling our software – we’re excited to be part of a global movement that is transforming the way people think about and use transportation.

A recent example of how RideAmigos works alongside other forward-thinking leaders in our industry was featured by The Washington Post:

A digitally promoted slug line could whisk commuters from Woodbridge to Tysons by making use of high-occupancy vehicle lanes. D.C. commuters headed in similar directions could save time and money by piling into the same car. And car owners could rent out their vehicles to make a little extra money when they weren’t using them.

These were some of the ideas pitched at “Playing with Traffic,” a meetup of coders, entrepreneurs, urban planners and transit professionals and enthusiasts collectively known as “Transportation Techies.”

Members of the 1,700-participant group meet monthly at gatherings sponsored by Mobility Lab, the research arm of Arlington County’s commuter services program. The most recent meetup focused on how the sharing economy could improve commuting.

Unlike the door-to-door model popularized by Uber and Lyft, the giants of the industry, true ride sharing “is to try to encourage people to share” …

Read the full article to learn about the cutting-edge ideas that were part of this meet-up, including a presentation by our own Prachi Vakharia, RideAmigos Engagement Director. Prachi shared our expertise and experience with promoting ridesharing during special events and through challenges like bike to work week, both of which are proven methods for increasing long-term rideshare usage and participation.

Encouraging Government Collaboration

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Governments should collaborate and work together, rather than alone, to find effective transportation management solutions.

To truly change the way people commute and move around urban areas, it is absolutely necessary for government agencies to form partnerships and engage in collaborative efforts. Government collaboration leads to proven benefits, including increases in both the quality and the quantity of available data, heightened user and community engagement, and a big boost to the pool of resources on hand.

Progress can’t be made in a bubble, and the effects of positive change are stifled when they’re limited to isolated communities and confined geographic areas. In an age ruled by information, there’s no reason for governments to take a limited view when collaboration and collective approaches to implementing improvements are so much easier than they were in the past.

In some cases, the willingness to collaborate is there but the actual tools governments need to foster deeper levels of cooperation are not. To that end, here are some key ways government agencies can work together to build a better transportation management system:

  • Share overlapping sets of data. Shared databases that allow users cross-county access to information make for excellent commute planning tools. Local governments can also share trip logs, trip reports and user-generated data to uncover the key insights that lead to progressive and effective policy changes.
  • Leverage collective changes across public and private sectors. When the public and private sectors work together to find dynamic new solutions, everyone wins. Municipalities and local governments save money, boost economic growth and cut down on traffic congestion, and businesses build more productive, more efficient and more satisfying workforces.
  • Help local companies implement smarter commuting policies. If companies have multiple offices or locations that cross county lines or other geographic boundaries, governments that don’t collaborate to facilitate change are working against the economic and environmental good. Instead, work together to help companies with multiple locations plan more intelligently and offer their employees a better way to get around.
  • Copy what works. If your neighbor has introduced a change that’s generating positive results, just take what they’ve done and do it yourself! When solutions are proven to work, it’s easier to get community members and stakeholders on board, and that will ultimately be better for everyone.

Collaboration promotes goodwill between communities while maximizing the reach of taxpayer monies. Think “we,” not “us,” and get on the road to a better way of living that benefits everyone.

RideAmigos actively supports collaboration between government agencies and other clients through our innovative academy site, where users can learn from the ideas and successes of colleagues around the world.

To learn more about how we can meet your transportation management needs, please take a look at our video demo.

The Importance of Sharing Best Practices & Collaboration to Advance Sustainable Mobility

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back to conference videos

Virtual TDM Conference – Susan Shaheen from RideAmigos on Vimeo.

“What solutions do we have at our fingertips to address many of the issues that face us today, with respect to climate change, accessibility, reliance on fossil fuels, and our land use patterns?” asks Susan Shaheen, Co-Director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC) at UC Berkeley. TSRC is an organization that studies the ways in which sustainable transportation can be made to be most efficient economically, socially, and environmentally. It is focusing on three strategies to lessen greenhouse gas emissions in ordinance with California’s greenhouse gas legislation AB32; they include transportation and land use strategies, technological solutions, and using fuels that leave a smaller carbon footprint.

These approaches, Susan explains, are “changing perceptions across the United States and the World.” She identifies mobility as a fundamental right, just as people are starting to realize that “access trumps possession,” as Kevin Kelly, former editor/publisher of Whole Earth Review, predicted in 2009. Local governments are recognizing this and have started to incorporate shared mobility into public rights of way. These efforts are being made with street parking, provisions for off street parking, waiting zones, and free or reduced cost parking. However, “in order for mobility to be accessible to all, the public and private sector need to work together to ensure all people have access to shared mobility options regardless of income, race or ability,” says Susan.

Susan addresses how the current narrative of changing perspectives on transportation will have a significant effect on transportation demand management. Susan also explains the potential that mobility services shared between users can have. The focus on sustainability and the growth of smart cities highlights the changing business models that will business and government will adopt in the coming decades. As the way we do business and the way we commute to work are constantly changing and consistently influencing the economy, corporations and governments will have to continually account for these changes.

By organizing the Virtual TDM Conference, RideAmigos has taken the initiative to “grow collaboration,” which Susan identifies as the way to success for sustainable transportation.