Welcome from your MassRIDES team.
Some familiar faces here for you, I hope.
So these are the folks who are really here to obviously run
your workplace program, give you all the insights and advice
that you need.
So as we go through this presentation,
and you've got great ideas or things
you want to follow up on, certainly get in touch
with your outreach coordinators, your massRIDES staff,
to dig into any of these things that you
want to explore at all further.
They're really here for you.
They're a resource to support your program.
So certainly, make a note of who you
need to connect with and certainly
do that after the presentation.
So this is me.
My name's Adam.
I work with UrbanTrans.
We do a good amount of work with MassRIDES,
particularly around these webinars and sharing insights
and tips on different elements of commuting, particularly
in the workplace.
So I'm here today to share some of my tips
and my ideas on commute costs and saving on that cost
as well.
I'm pretty fortunate.
I have the pleasure of riding my bike to work.
So my commute cost is pretty low.
But I'm all too aware of some of the costs
that other people incur.
So we want to kind of share a little bit of that with you
today.
So in terms of the goal today, we
want to make sure that you folks understand
the true cost of your employees' commuting habits.
So this is obviously a little bit for you
as ETCs, but also understanding
the cost of your employees' commute
and the impact it has on them.
We want to teach you a little bit about how you can calculate
some of those commute costs.
And then, we want to think a bit about how you
can reduce those commute costs.
So when we show you some of those numbers
about how much it costs to drive alone to work,
for example, how can we find ways
of reducing some of that cost?
And then finally, think a little bit
about how you can communicate cost savings to your workforce,
to your commuters, to motivate some behavior change,
to get them to think about changing how they get to work.
So spoiler alert, putting it out there, no big surprise,
commuting costs money.
We know this.
And again, no big surprise.
Driving really does cost the most.
Whichever way you slice it, driving to work on your own
is the most expensive way of getting
to work when we compare it with all the other modes.
No matter what kind of car you drive--
it doesn't matter how fuel-efficient,
whether you've got a tiny, little European mobile
or this gold-dipped Bugatti.
It doesn't matter how much you spent on your car.
It is going to cost you money to drive to and from work.
So really, we're going to try and cover all those bases
today to talk a little bit about some of those costs
and what will the money mean for you.
So one of the first things I think that's worth addressing
is thinking about what we're talking about when we
talk about the cost of driving.
Often when we talk to commuters and talk to our staff,
really when people think about the cost of commuting,
they're really thinking about the fuel.
They think about the gas they put in the tank.
They might think a little bit about the cost of maintaining
that vehicle, maybe a service once or twice a year,
maybe an oil change, that kind of thing.
But really, there's a real basket
of costs that go into measuring your driving costs.
So AAA measures this on the following.
So fuel, as I mentioned, is one of them.
Maintenance, repair, that's not just big issues that arise,
but just regular maintenance.
Thinking of repair obviously, but also
tires, particularly in Massachusetts thinking
about potentially having winter tires
or another set of tires, a few sets of tires, that you're
going through wear and tear on that, changing
those, those kind of things.
Also included in that is the cost of licensing,
registration, the taxes that you pay on the vehicle,
the insurance, which I think traditionally everyone feels
always is an increasing cost, so the cost
of insuring your vehicle.
Depreciation is another big one that certainly we don't always
think about.
But if you're buying a new vehicle or a nearly
new vehicle, the moment you drive that off the lot,
you're going to see a depreciation
in the cost of that vehicle.
And that's really a cost that you're swallowing.
And then thinking about the cost of things like financing
or leasing a vehicle, so how much are you paying if you
don't-- if you're not paying cash outright for a vehicle,
how much are you paying to purchase or lease that vehicle?
What are the financing costs involved with that?
So AAA measures these--
put all these into their formula in terms of how they
measure the cost of driving.
There are additional things, though,
that you should certainly consider when
we're talking about the cost.
It's everything that you put into your vehicle,
as we mentioned, that AAA works with, but also
things like toll roads.
So we know there's some of those in the state.
So if you're using those toll roads,
that's an additional cost that you're going to incur,
certainly.
And parking, parking is a huge cost.
If you pay for parking, likely you're
all too aware of how much that is.
And the chances are that that increases on a frequent basis.
So that is something that we have
to factor in when we're thinking about the cost of commuting.
So when we look at the AAA--
and they do a study every year to kind of work out
an average cost per mile of commuting.
This is across the US, based on different types of mileage.
And this is a very general number.
So this is your average vehicle driving
an average amount, composite from across the whole country.
But what you're looking at is if you're driving 10,000 miles
a year, about $0.73.
15,000 miles, it's about $0.56.
20,000, it's about $0.49 per mile.
So you see the more you drive, the less per mile it costs you.
But obviously, you're increasing your mileage.
So the cost is going to go up.
What does that mean when we look at it just in Massachusetts?
So the average annual vehicle miles traveled in the state
is about 8,300 miles.
So if we multiply that by the AAA rate there,
so about $0.73 per mile, that means the average person who's
driving alone to work is spending about $6,115 per year
on getting to and from work.
That is a huge cost that people are probably not
aware that they're spending.
And I'm guessing we'd like to probably spend it
on something different that isn't just
paying to have their car, drive it to and from work,
and sit in traffic in it.
What kind of things could you spend this money on?
Now, I don't need to tell you ways to spend your money.
You are free to spend it how you want.
But if it were me, these are some of the things
I might think about.
If I have an extra $6,000 in my pocket every year,
maybe a wonderful family vacation
in a tropical destination, eating out every week
at a really fancy restaurant, some nice furniture
for my house, maybe buying clothes and accessories, things
like that, buying a great big TV and all the electronic things
I want.
Maybe I want to go to a show every couple of weeks.
Maybe there's all different ways that we
might want to spend that money.
The reason I flagged this is when we talk a little bit later
about communicating the cost of a commute,
it's useful to kind of remind people about,
what does this money look like?
Where else could you use it?
Do you really want to be spending this on a car?
Or could you change your behavior
so that you could think about maybe going on that vacation,
buying that new TV, that kind of thing.
Another way to think of that is if you're not just
thinking about what am I going to spend it on immediately,
what if you invested that?
What if you took $4,000 that you're
saving potentially every year, if you
chose not to use your car and drive alone,
and you invested that in a very low rate of return?
I am certainly no financial expert.
I cannot guarantee this rate of return.
But certainly a very low rate over 10 years, you
could all of a sudden have almost $55,000.
That is a very significant amount of money
that can certainly help you along the way
with all kinds of things.
So framing these savings in ways that
are immediate and long-term is a great way
of getting people to really think about that cost.
What does it mean to them?
It's not just the $50 they put in the gas tank once or twice
a week.
It's really this accumulation of costs, seeing it in one place
and getting them to really think about the impact of that.
Maybe this is something that I should
think a little bit more about.
If you're thinking about calculating that commute,
obviously you can use the numbers.
Do your math on the back of an envelope if you want.
And scribble it all down.
One of the great tools we have at MassRIDES,
however, is a commute calculator that
is going to do a lot of that work for you.
So if you go to commute.com, you'll
find our calculator there.
And what you can do is you can put
in all the different variables relating to your travel costs
and figure out what the overall commute
cost would be on the daily, monthly, and yearly basis--
so very straightforward.
All you need to know is, how far is your round trip to work?
So you put that in.
How many days a week do you drive to work?
So you put that little bit of information in.
You figure out your average miles per gallon
on your vehicle.
If you don't know that, a really quick google of,
"What's the average miles per gallon on a Dodge Caravan?,"
and Google will bring it up very quickly.
There are people out there that run websites who track
this information very closely.
So certainly, yeah, you can find that information.
What's the average price of gas?
Put that in there.
And if you're paying for parking,
how much do you pay per month?
So making sure we're factoring that cost in.
And plugging all those numbers on the backend,
the calculator will do the math using the numbers from AAA
to generate a cost for you.
So you can kind of see some of what those costs are.
And in a second, we'll go through
that so you can see some examples.
This is a great tool, again obviously,
if you're interested to right now to go and play
around and see how much your commute costs,
but to use to engage your employees with as well,
to have at an information table, promote through an email,
to let people know, you can go.
You can figure out how much your commute's costing me.
If you don't believe me-- you can suggest to the staff,
if you're not believing what I'm saying,
go and use the calculator.
And you'll probably be quite surprised at what you find.
So that's on the MassRIDES commute.com website.
So certainly make use of that.
So what I wanted to do is kind of use that and give
some examples of commute costs with some hopefully reasonably
realistic examples.
So we have three commuters that I want to introduce you
to this afternoon.
The first is Karen.
Hey, Karen.
Good to see you.
So Karen, she travels to Tufts Medical Center
in downtown Boston from Medford four days a week by car.
She likes the flexibility of it.
She's got a little 2015 Golf.
But she also loves to travel--
and travel not being the commute to work travel,
but traveling worldwide, seeing the world, that kind of thing.
So if we take some of her details,
and we plug them into the commute calculator,
what can we see?
We can see an estimated daily commute cost of about $42.
And again, this is including parking as well as
everything else.
A monthly commute cost of about $672
and an annual cost of $8,736, that's
a pretty significant chunk of change
that you're paying to make sure that you get to work.
The other neat thing, just to flag there at the bottom
that you can see, that the calculator produces
is it does show how much CO2 is produced by your trip, so again
to kind of measure that environmental impact.
So that's Karen.
This is our other new friend, Thomas.
Good to see you.
So Thomas, he lives out in Framingham.
He drives from there to the outskirts of Worcester
in his '95 Ford Explorer, works fairly regular hours,
drives back and forth Monday to Friday.
Here, he's really interested in potentially
renovating his basement.
So he's starting to think about things
he might want some money for.
So what does his commute look like?
So his daily cost is around $28, monthly cost about $568,
and an annual cost of $7,384.
Now, one of the interesting things here, you'll see he's
producing a bit more CO2.
He's got an older vehicle.
His engine's a bit dirtier.
It's a bigger car.
So he's going to produce more CO2.
It also means he's going to be using more gas.
And because of that, that cost is going to go up as well.
So again, you can see this is not an unusual commute.
That's approximately that annual cost for that.
And then here, we have Elizabeth.
So Elizabeth lives and works in the Berkshires.
She drives 15 miles to work each day in her Dodge Caravan.
She's got a couple of kids, a dog.
And she does baseball coaching, so she's pretty busy.
She's on the go a lot.
So she feels like she really does need that car.
So what does her cost look like?
So again, using the commute calculator,
she's got a daily cost of about $22,
a monthly cost of about $448, and then
an annual cost of $5,824.
So again, these are significant amounts.
For someone who's driving what they
feel is a short distance every day,
they're probably not even thinking about it.
It really does add up in terms of the cost of that trip.
So what I want to do with these folks
now that we know that they're paying quite a bit every year
to commute, now that we have these new friends,
we want to help them out.
I want to talk a little bit about how we can
save on the commute as well.
So now, we know how much a commute costs on average.
We know how we can calculate that.
We can see all the different factors.
So if you're anything like me, once you
know how much something's costing you,
you then think about how you can save some of that money.
So I want to take you through a whole bunch of different ideas
and tips on how you can save on a commute mode,
in both a large scale and a smaller scale.
So again, spoiler alert, no big surprise,
the best way to save money on driving is to do it less.
So the less that you drive on your own,
the less money you're going to spend on that.
That's fairly straightforward.
The next question is, though, how do you do that?
Obviously, MassRIDES is here to really support
all the different alternatives to driving alone.
These are things, obviously, you're certainly
going to be familiar with.
But I want to take you through some of these different ideas
and look at them from a cost-saving perspective
and see what's going to give you the best value, the best
bang for your buck.
So carpooling is a significant one, so sharing that ride.
Very straightforward, you can certainly--
if you share the ride, you can directly
share that cost with someone.
If you share a carpool with just one person,
you can cut that cost in half, 50% off,
by reducing the vehicle miles that you're traveling--
whether that is in your own car, driving that less because maybe
you trade on and off with someone else who's driving,
or because maybe someone's reimbursing
you some money for gas mileage, that kind of thing.
So you can certainly reduce some of those costs.
Just to put a plug in here for Bay State Commute,
in terms of a website that we have,
a tool that you have available to you.
So people can go online.
They can find that carpool.
They can find someone who's going
to help them save that money.
Going onto Bay State Commute, putting in their commute
details, and finding a match is really
the first step in finding that carpool partner.
[INAUDIBLE] to make sure that--
make sure there's no messages.
So the next step thing we can look at
is thinking about finding a cheaper mode,
finding a cheaper way of getting around.
And that doesn't mean buying a cheaper car.
It might mean buying a more cost-efficient vehicle.
But we'll talk about that later.
But really what we're talking about
is switching modes, getting out of the car,
thinking of a different way of getting to work.
Number one on that list is thinking
about taking transit to work.
In Massachusetts, we have a wealth of opportunity.
We have 16 regional transit authorities
and all the associated transit networks
within those that can carry you around to work,
so lots of opportunity.
We certainly recommend that you communicate [? to staff, ?]
that transit can be an option.
Absolutely, we recognize that for some locations,
with some [? staff, ?] with some types of work,
it is not going to be the best fit.
For a lot of people, it actually may
be more convenient and certainly cheaper
than they may initially think.
When we talk about transit, obviously it's--
at any level, it's cheaper than driving.
The cost of a ticket is going to be cheaper
than driving that distance.
However, there's certainly ways to save even more money.
If someone is interested in taking transit, reminding them
that if they buy monthly, for example,
they're going to save money on fares.
So if you look at the MBTA, if you pay on a monthly basis,
you're paying around $85 versus a single trip of $1.70,
which over the course of a month would add up.
So monthly fares are certainly a cheaper way to navigate transit
and to save money in that way.
There can be even more savings, particularly
through an employer, on the transit side of things.
So as an employer, you can certainly
offer discounted transit passes.
So you can subsidize the cost of that transit pass program.
There's also-- so some of the agencies,
so MBTA in particular, offers a corporate plan that allows you
as an employer to purchase passes in bulk
and then provide tax-advantaged transit benefits to staff.
So the convenience of that obviously is helpful,
and then passing on that discount to your staff,
again, to encourage them to take transit.
Often, saving money on transit can encourage someone
to consider it in a way they hadn't done before.
They might consider taking a trip that is maybe
five or 10 minutes longer.
But it's saving them a significant amount of money.
So it's worth them making the switch to transit.
Something else to note really quickly,
within Bay State Commute, as you know,
by logging trips you can earn points and get rewards.
One of the rewards that you're able to redeem
is a discount from charter bus services, such as Peter Pan.
So again, you can use the trips that you're
logging to earn your rewards, to get
discounts, further discounts, on transit access.
So again, it's a real great way of saving a little bit
more money on that commute.
Something we should note, though,
and I call this the small print-- just recognizing
that there are costs.
I won't say they are hidden costs, but things that we do
need to think about when we're thinking about transit,
particularly if we're looking at things like commuter rail.
If you are taking commuter rail, it's
likely that you may want to park at one of those commuter rail
stations.
A lot of those stations have monthly parking fees
that certainly are ranging from $30 up to $160.
So that's something you do have to consider
within that commute.
As a sort of a little hack to see if you can find a cheaper
place to park, finding somewhere that's
got a little bit more availability.
So it might mean maybe parking in a lot that's
a little further out, maybe one station further out from where
you normally leave from.
That can reduce your parking cost.
So the more availability at the parking lot, generally
that cost will be a little lower for you.
So moving on from transit, as I mentioned earlier,
my commute is pretty cheap because I get to ride my bike.
So there are very few fuel costs involved,
other than whatever you had for breakfast and for lunch
to kind of fuel you, fuel your legs getting yourself
to and from work.
A new bike or even a refurbished bike
is a pretty minimal investment in the grand scheme of things.
I would certainly always recommend
you make sure that if you are thinking about riding your bike
to work, you get something that is reasonably decent.
You might spend $500, $600.
Here's just an example of a bike available in the area
right now that's something comfortable, robust.
It's going to work for you through the different seasons.
But it doesn't have to be a huge investment to do that.
Thinking about tuneup costs, maintenance
costs you might spend, $100, $150 a year
just to keep everything running.
But again, if we compare that to the cost
of owning, maintaining, fueling a motor vehicle,
it really pales in comparison.
So certainly think about cycling as a
really budget option in terms of getting to work.
As an employer, you can boost that a little, too.
So you can consider offering things
like a monthly subsidy for people
who cycle, giving everyone who cycles,
they're eligible to get $50 every month.
So again, that lowers their commute costs.
Or even bigger picture, thinking about things like a parking
cash-out, so the idea that rather than
subsidizing parking for employees,
you give them the cash in place of a parking space.
So if normally you offer an employee free parking,
but it costs you $100, you take that $100.
And you give it to your cyclist employee
for them to do as they choose.
So again, a great way to incentivize it,
but also then to reduce their costs.
Walking, even less money.
Certainly, you don't need a big fancy bike to do this.
You might choose to get yourself some new, comfortable shoes.
You might get a new set of headphones
so you can listen to something when you're walking to work.
But really, I think as most of us know,
walking around's a pretty budget-friendly way
of getting to and from work.
Something else you can think about, though, too
is that that increased physical activity can really
save on things in terms of your health.
So it might save on your gym fees.
If you're walking 30 minutes to and from work every day,
that's not a bad workout.
That might save you signing up for that expensive gym
membership that you might not ever use.
You're obviously going to save on parking fees.
And you can potentially reduce your long-term health costs
as well.
Improving your heart health, improving
your general well-being through physical activity
by walking to and from work is a great way
of making sure that you don't incur some of those big health
costs later on in life.
Telework is probably one of the cheapest ways.
Teleworking and compressed workweeks
are one of really the cheapest ways of commuting.
It's really costing you nothing.
Because you're reducing your time on the road.
If you're teleworking completely or a compressed workweek,
you might be reducing your time on the road
by two or three days, for example.
So certainly, that's worth thinking
about what existing policies you have at your workplace
that you can look at.
Are you able to work from home?
Is there an option to work longer hours for three or four
days a week to shorten the week you actually work?
So maybe you do four days at longer hours,
and then on the Friday you don't work.
Or, you work two or three days from home.
Thinking about what those options are available to you,
the one thing to note with telework
is that it really is a spectrum.
It's a continuum.
So when we talk about working from home,
it doesn't necessarily mean setting up a home office,
working there five days a week, completely detaching yourself
from the workplace.
It might be doing it on a once, twice, three times
a week basis, having that flexibility.
But again, every time that you leave
the car parked on the driveway, that's
a saving that you're making.
That's not gas that you're burning.
That's not wear and tear that you're putting on that vehicle.
And obviously, the huge savings in time as well, as you can
see here.
Your day's done at 5:00.
You turn your chair around.
And then you're home already, pretty sweet way
of getting to and from work.
Something else to think about if a specific mode isn't
the one for you or for your employees is to think
about going multimodal.
So it might be that transit isn't
an immediate option for you.
There's nothing directly close to your neighborhood,
close and convenient to your house.
But what you may be able to do is drive partway to work.
So rather than drive the full distance,
maybe you can half the amount of time that you drive.
You drive partway.
You park it up.
Maybe you bike, or you drive to the bus station, the train
station.
You leave your vehicle there.
Maybe you can also bike to the bus or train station.
So think about switching up those different modes.
There are park and ride options throughout the state.
So thinking about, where can you go park your car,
find a carpool, meet your carpool partner,
join a vanpool, connect on a commuter bus?
So again, ways of driving part of the way, saving that money,
and redirecting and using a different mode,
driving to the commuter rail as we mentioned.
And then finally, there's the park and pedal program as well,
so the idea that maybe you don't need
to drive all the way downtown.
You drive to the outskirts of town.
You park up in one of the park and pedal areas.
And you jump on your bike and ride
your bike the rest of the way.
Again, cutting-- any time you can
reduce the amount of driving that you're doing,
you're going to reduce the cost that you're paying for it.
There's also thinking about going
multimodal without the car at all.
So we are starting to see more and more options in cities
across the state for accessing different modes
of transportation without needing a vehicle at all.
So you might think, well, my main trip is a train
trip from my town to my place of work.
But I live-- maybe I live a 10-minute drive
outside of town.
How am I going to make that connection?
Well, there are things like bike shares.
And we're starting to see and potentially
going to see things like scooter shares coming down the line.
If you're in Boston, you'll be familiar with the blue bike
system, the bikeshare system that
allows you to pick up a bike from a station,
rent it for 10, 15 minutes, up to half an hour,
and then drop it off at a station near your destination.
So a great way to connect from a transit station,
for example, to your place of work.
The trips there, the cost ranges from $250
to an annual cost of $100 almost,
a great value way of filling some
of those first- and last-mile transit gaps.
We're also starting to see more and more
of these dockless systems.
So the dockless bikeshare systems
are those where you don't pick them up from a station.
You have a little app.
And it identifies where someone's left a bike around
maybe in your neighborhood, maybe at your place of work,
somewhere where you're going to make that connection with.
So lots of flexibility in there, so no longer
do you necessarily need to take a bike and say,
well, you know what?
It's no good to me because there's no drop-off
station near my place of work.
These new systems don't have any kind of dock.
So they can really be left pretty much anywhere.
So there's examples.
LimeBike you might be familiar with.
Ant Bicycle, similar kind of idea,
the idea that you use an app.
You reserve the bike.
You take it out, do what you want,
and leave it wherever it needs to be.
You pay about $1 an hour for it, so very cost-effective, very
easy, very flexible to use.
Something that you may start to see,
we're seeing it across the country more and more,
so these little scooters that are popping up overnight, so
little electric scooters.
So Bird is one type of these, so very popular,
more so than bikes.
I think people are getting very comfortable just
jumping on a little scooter more so than riding on a bike.
You pay $1 to unlock it.
You pay $0.15 a minute to use it.
Again, you use a little app.
You find out where these bikes have been left around.
And off you go.
So a great way of maybe connecting
to a transit station in a way that you hadn't thought
of before or maybe connecting to a new carpool partner.
It really extends your range by having these flexible options
available to you.
So we've talked a lot about the different modes,
the different ways that you can just drive less.
And again, that's really the priority
that we want to try and communicate here.
Have people drive less, and it's going to cost them less.
However, we absolutely recognize that there are
days when you need to drive.
There are situations where employees say, you know,
I just need my car on this particular day.
Transit isn't an option for me.
Carpooling isn't going to work every day of the week.
That's fine.
So one of the things I think is useful to communicate
is, how do we drive a little smarter so that when
we are in our vehicles, if we are driving alone,
how do we reduce the amount of gas
and wear and tear on the vehicles
while we're actually using them?
So there's five things here I'm going
to go really quickly through--
one being about choosing your car, one being about driving it
smartly, one being about maintaining your engine,
thinking about planning trips, and then finally thinking
about moving.
That's a big one.
That's not quite as straightforward.
But I think it's worth talking about.
So first up, think about the vehicle that you're choosing.
If you're in the position to buy a new car
or you're looking to change the vehicle you have,
think about what you need.
Think about getting a smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicle.
Do you really need that pickup truck?
The top three selling vehicles in the US right
now are all pickup trucks.
It's the Ford F-150, the Silverado, the Dodge Ram.
There is a time and a place for those vehicles.
But I very much doubt that everyone
who's driving those vehicles is a contractor or a farmer who
needs this big vehicle.
Think about what you need for the type of driving that you
do to significantly reduce the amount that you spend on gas
and you spend on that vehicle.
So think about those smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.
Obviously, electric and hybrid vehicles
are a great option, taking that extra step
to really think about reducing the cost of fuel.
If you're running on full electric or electric hybrid
vehicles, that's certainly an opportunity
to reduce those fuel costs.
There's also rebates available for individuals.
So if you're getting into one of those vehicles,
or you're thinking of getting into that market,
you can actually get rebates to make that cost lower for you.
As a workplace, this is something
that you can support through charging stations,
providing those in your parking at your workplace
if you have that potential.
And there's incentives available from the department
of environmental protection to support that,
to put some of those stations in, and again encourage people
if they are going to drive to think about choosing a greener,
more fuel-efficient option.
So you've chosen your fuel-efficient car.
You're very happy with it.
You've made the right choice.
Now, it's time to think about driving more sensibly,
being fuel efficient, being careful
with how you're driving around to make the most out of the gas
that you're putting into the car.
Now, some people will take this to extremes, these hypermiler
folks who really try and squeeze every last drop of energy
out of the gas they put in the tank.
Behavior doesn't have to be that extreme.
But here's a few small changes, thinking
about how your vehicle works to really try and reduce
the amount of gas that you're using.
So accelerating is a big one.
So accelerating accounts for about 50%
of your fuel consumption.
So every time you're at a red light, and it goes green,
you put your foot on the gas, and you race off,
you're really using up large amounts of fuel
that perhaps you don't need to, particularly
within urban and suburban contexts where all you're doing
is you're racing up to the next red light
or the next intersection.
So slowing that down, giving yourself a good five seconds
to get from starting to sort of a 20 mile an hour speed
can really reduce that cost.
So avoiding those sort of jack rabbit,
lurching starts, those huge accelerations,
can save 37% of your fuel.
Because that acceleration is really heavy on the fuel usage.
So avoiding that, driving more smoothly, braking more gently,
all those things, things that will
make you a better and more comfortable driver,
are going to save you costs on your gas as well.
Maintenance is obviously important.
We talked about the cost of maintenance being a factor.
So it's not a good idea to try and save on that maintenance
by not doing it.
So think about your tires, making sure
that they're checked, making sure that the treads are good,
that they're running properly, that they're properly inflated.
A poorly inflated tire will create a real drag
on your vehicle and cost you more in gas.
Make sure you're checking your oil regularly.
Refer to your owner's manual.
A lot of modern cars are very easy to maintain.
They can be a little complex.
You look under the hood, it's very hard
to kind of see how it's all put together.
But oil is a constant.
Certainly, make sure that you're doing your oil change
and that you're keeping that maintained.
Old oil, the wrong grade of oil can really wear out your engine
and can just cause a 2% increase in your fuel consumption.
If you're doing a lot of driving,
that's a significant amount.
So really maintain that vehicle as the manufacturer
is suggesting and making sure that the basics,
the oil and the tires, are where they need to be.
So your car is running smoothly.
You're driving it very perfectly.
Everything's going as it should.
So you're saving money in that way.
Next is to think about how you plan your trips.
Some of us do this automatically.
Others do not.
So it's certainly worth thinking about,
every time you get in that car, how do you get the most use out
of it?
What are you going to do when you're in that vehicle?
So think about, well, I'm going to this store.
Maybe I can pick up my groceries while I'm doing it.
Maybe I'm going to get the kids from school.
Maybe I should go pick up my dry-cleaning.
It's all in the same way.
Because every time you drive out, you start the car up.
You drive out.
You come back.
You drive out again, come back.
Drive out again to do another errand.
You're using gas in that acceleration.
You're using gas in the startup.
And you're just using gas because you're driving more.
So think about that.
Think about how timing impacts it.
Do you need something immediately?
Or can it wait a day?
If you know you're going to be out by Home Depot on Thursday,
maybe that's the time that you need
to go and pick that stuff up.
Maybe you don't need it right away.
So again, thinking sensibly about the journeys
that you're making.
Combining those trips, you could save 20% to 50% on your fuel
by being thoughtful and planning out
the way you want to move around.
And finally, this is a kind of a bit [INAUDIBLE],,
controversial one.
But I think it's worth considering.
Think about where you live and where you work.
And if you're in the position of thinking of a change
in your life-- thinking about, maybe we need to move for all
kinds of reasons, expansion of family, a change in lifestyle,
whatever it is--
think sensibly and carefully about
where you want to choose to live.
Often, the assumption is by moving further away,
you can reduce your cost of living.
You can get yourself a cheaper house.
It's more affordable.
But often, people don't factor in those transportation costs,
which can be significantly more, whether that is just
the cost of extra driving-- you move an extra 20 minutes away
from your workplace, that's another 40
minutes on the road every day, and obviously the cost of gas
involved in that, and the wear and tear on your vehicle.
That's an extra-- a cost that you might not factor in.
So even though perhaps your mortgage payment is shrinking,
your monthly transportation cost is
going to potentially increase.
Think about the time that you spend commuting.
There's been a lot of studies recently really trying
to put some numbers to the cost of that time.
The time that you spend an hour in the vehicle
versus half an hour, what does that mean to you?
What could you be doing with that time?
Doing your own thing, spending time with family,
going out for dinner, going to the gym, whatever it is,
that all has a cost.
And by spending that time in the car,
it's costing you to do that.
So think about living closer to work
if that opportunity arises.
It can reduce those commute costs, obviously.
And then it also starts to open more of those options.
So as you get closer to work, things that might not
have been feasible for you, walking and cycling,
now they might become a better option for you.
So again, there's that opportunity to reduce costs.
Now, I'm absolutely not saying that this
is a recipe for everybody.
But I think if we're talking about saving money,
different ways of being effective in how
we kind of manage our transportation,
our personal transportation budget,
thinking carefully about where we live
is an important piece of this puzzle.
So just now we've sort of gone through some of these tips,
I want to come back to our new friends here,
our new commuters, and see if we can help them
save a little bit of money.
So if you remember Karen here, she is our Tufts employee.
She's coming in from Medford four times a week.
She's spending almost $9,000 a year on her commute.
So what might her options be?
So I'm suggesting that maybe she can jump on the T,
get on transit, and really save herself some money.
So she could rent one of these LimeBikes.
She could pick up a bike that [? might be ?] she's found just
down the street from her.
She's taking a ride to catch the 134 inbound bus.
She's going to get off at Wellington Station.
She can take the orange line all the way to Tufts.
That will cost her about $1,200 a year, give or take.
For her, that's a saving of over $7,500--
again, hugely significant.
So she's all ready to plan her trip to Fiji.
And she might even be able to get
a couple of trips out of that.
That's a big saving that she's making.
Let's check in with Thomas here.
So remember Thomas is coming from Framingham out
to Worcester.
He's spending again just over $7,000 a year on his commute.
So his best option is probably carpooling.
So Thomas, he's signed up to Bay State Commute.
And he's found a carpool match with someone
who works at his office.
So him and his carpool partner, they alternate driving week
by week.
He's directly cut his commute cost in half.
Great scenario for him, he's saving about $3,600 a year.
So he's off.
He's off to go.
He's actually going down to Home Depot.
And he's going to start designing that man
cave in his basement.
He's going to get his big TV.
He's going to get his big comfy couch.
Because now, he's got this big chunk of change
that he's saving every month.
And then finally, we have Elizabeth here.
So remember, she lives out in the Berkshires.
She's spending almost $6,000 a year on her commute.
What if she-- what are maybe some of her options?
So one of the things we're suggesting for Elizabeth here
is to think about working from home three days a week.
As we said, working from home is something
that you don't have to do every day.
But by choosing to do it two or three days a week,
you can really start to reduce that cost.
So she's going to reduce that cost significantly.
She's going to invest in a better desk
so she's comfortable.
That's certainly not required, but she's
making that commitment.
She's going to pay a little bit of money for a nice desk
so she can work comfortably at home.
Her commute now, two days of driving,
the rest of the day at home, is probably
going to cost her about $2,500, saving almost $3,500
every year.
So what's she going to do with it?
Well, if we remember, she's got a couple of kids.
They're going to start thinking about going to school anytime
soon.
So she's going to start putting that money away and investing
very carefully and sensibly in the stock market.
So in 10 years' time or so, she's
going to have a very healthy college tuition fund
to help with her lifestyle.
She thinks that's a much better way
of spending her money than spending it sitting in a car.
So having shown you those examples,
I think they're a good way of getting the message out
and communicating why it's important to talk about saving
money as a way to get people to think about changing
their travel behavior.
So providing those real-life examples
can be really helpful, so explaining
to staff what does it mean to save $5,000 a year
can be significant.
Having someone use the commute calculator
can really help them realize what the true costs are.
It's getting them away from just thinking about whatever
they put in the gas tank this weekend at the gas
station to thinking about, oh my goodness.
I didn't realize I was spending $6,000 a year on this.
That's a real number that makes me
think I could probably do something a little better
with it.
Talk about promoting those immediate savings, but also
those long-term savings.
So I think it's easy to sort of--
and I've done it here--
say, you can spend it on a great vacation.
It seems a little frivolous.
But really getting people to think about, what does it
mean to have this money that currently you're
investing in driving to work?
It could be invested somewhere else.
It could be a long-term payoff for you.
And then on the employer end of things,
how do we make the non-drive alone
modes financially attractive?
So what else can we do to not just say, well, it's cheaper
if you ride your bike?
But actually, what can we do to incentivize that even further?
So we're going to pay you to ride your bike.
We might give you a subsidy.
We might do a parking cash-out.
Thinking about those options to really
sort of add to the value of that savings
is going to be important.
So just as we get to the end here,
I want you to flag a couple of ways in which MassRIDES
can really help with this.
One we talked about quite a bit is the commute calculator.
So again, there's that tool.
It's available.
It's right there on the website.
Everyone can go along, play with it.
You can have a little contest.
See who in the office spends the most on their commute.
Shame someone into rethinking how they do it.
But it's a useful tool to get people to really understand
that cost for them.
There's also the Bay State Commute
tool, which we talked about in terms
of finding carpool matches.
We talked about in terms of logging trips to get rewards.
But also by logging trips, you can
start to see the cost savings that you're making.
So every green trip that you're making
and you're logging on there, you're
going to start to see over the course of the month
and the year the kind of savings that you're
making on that trip.
So again, a great way to sort of showcase,
oh, this is really having an impact on me.
And of course, by logging those trips,
you're going to get points that you
can redeem for certain rewards and get discounts.
So it's not necessarily huge amounts of money.
But it could be a free coffee every week,
an extra donut, something like that.
Again, everything, every little bit, helps.
Further MassRIDES support is really available in terms
of getting to understand your commuter needs
and options a little better, so doing
survey work to understand, where are people coming from?
What kind of options are best suited for them?
Talking to staff directly about the commute calculator,
all these things are some of the work
that we at MassRIDES can provide and support you in that.
We can do Meet Your Match carpool events,
so carpool events being the opportunity
to bring people together, find a carpool,
find people who live in their area, make that connection.
We do Try It Day events as well, so
getting people to try something different,
trying transit for a day, realizing that it might be
effective and useful for them.
That's certainly something that we can help with.
And then just to note something that's
going to be coming next year is we're currently
working on a guide to telework for workplaces, so really
a guide, a handbook, that you as workplaces can use
to understand what we mean by telework,
and the processes involved in developing a telework program,
and some of the resources that you'll need to actually build
your telework program and get staff working
from home a few days a week--
again, reducing that commute cost for them.
So that's something to look out for in 2019.
All right.
So just to wrap up really quick here, what have we learned?
Hopefully, we've learned a lot today.
Hopefully, it's been useful for you.
Right from the get-go, commuting by a single occupant vehicle
costs more than you think.
So certainly, let's keep reminding people about that.
Let's keep that front of our minds
that it is much more expensive than you might think
to drive your car on your own.
The cost of that convenience is significant.
It's more than gas.
It's more than just the car.
It's also thinking about parking, tolls, everything else
that we mentioned today.
By choosing a green commute option,
you can yield some significant savings.
Whether it's carpooling, or transit, cycling, or walking,
that's the way to save money on that trip.
That's the way to take those few thousand dollars every year
and put them elsewhere, and not into your vehicle.
If we can help employees visualize those savings
and maybe dream about spending them, giving them
some great ideas, that can be a really good motivator.
So think about that the next time you're
doing a Try It campaign.
The next time you're talking to your employees
about getting them to think about carpooling,
get them to think about what kind of savings they can make
and maybe inspire them to dream a little bit about what they
might spend those savings on.
And then finally, as a reminder, there's
lots of different commute options.
There's lots of different ways you can piece those together.
I think one of the key things to remember is flexibility.
It's not about necessarily saying,
you must switch to one particular mode of transit
for five days a week, so suddenly you're a transit user.
It might be that you take transit
a couple of days a week.
You drive a little bit.
You park, and you pedal for another couple of days.
All those different options are available.
So getting employees to recognize
that they can be flexible is certainly
going to be an important part to help
them feel comfortable in making that kind of switch.
And again, MassRIDES is here to help with that process
and to support the particular needs that you might have
and interests in ways you want to explore this a little bit
further.
So that's sort of the formal part of the presentation.
I wanted to kind of open up for questions.
If you have questions, I'm going to open my little chat
bar here.
Let's see if we can do this.
If anyone has some--
I do have some questions that we received during the session.
So where are we here?
Let's open the chat bar.
So not seeing any.
What I'm going to do is I have a list of questions
here that sort of we picked up during the course
of the session.
So I will go through these.
And hopefully, if this was your question,
it's going to answer it properly.
So the first question, is my company liable
if something goes wrong in our carpool program?
So really, a carpool relationship
is the responsibility of two or more parties involved.
So it's those folks' responsibility.
So it's up to them to negotiate payment terms and everything
else within that.
So it's certainly not the responsibility of you
as a company.
Second question we have here, I don't
have any public transportation nearby.
But I'm interested in finding a new commute.
How can I figure out other options?
So certainly Bay State Commute, we mentioned that.
That is probably the first place to go.
Set up a profile on Bay State Commute
to look for carpool and vanpool options that
are available to you.
You can also get in touch with MassRIDES
to get a personalized travel plan
to look at other options, transit options in particular
that are going to be based on different combinations that
might not come up with a Google search.
So if you're familiar mapping your trip with Google,
you can do a transit trip.
You can do a bike trip.
What Google doesn't do is necessarily piece those things
together for you.
So if you want to go multimodal and figure out,
"Is it an option for me to bike to the train station,
then get on the train, and then scoot at the end of it?,"
that's something that we can help you
with by doing that personalized travel plan.
Another question here, I'm interested in carpool
but enjoy the quiet of being alone.
Do I have to talk to my carpool partners?
My gosh, you'd be amazed how often we get that question.
That's really up to you and your carpool partner.
We recommend when anyone starts a carpool,
you have that conversation.
You figure out what works best for you.
And you set some of those ground rules.
You meet someone, and before you even start that carpool,
if it's not something you feel that you want to ride in a car
with, that's fine.
You don't always have to find that perfect match.
Another option might be the vanpool, though, as well.
So a vanpool, often with more people in the van,
it certainly allows for different types
of personalities.
If you want to just sit at the back
and put your headphones in and not talk to anyone,
no one's really going to care about that.
And so certainly think about that as an option.
Will I really save money taking the commuter rail
instead of driving?
Passes are often a couple of hundred bucks a month.
That is absolutely true.
So one of the things we didn't talk about in any detail here
is sort of the varied cost of the commuter rail.
Obviously, that's very much zone-based and distance-based
fares.
So that cost will certainly vary.
And if you're coming from a longer distance,
that cost will be higher.
However, really again, when we think about the true cost
of driving to work, all those things involved in it--
the parking, the wear and tear, the fuel--
you're absolutely going to save money on that in addition
to the comfort of not sitting in traffic
and not having to drive.
As expensive as it may seem, it's
going to be cheaper to use that commuter rail than driving
yourself alone.
Another question, will I still save money
if I can only take a green commute two
days of the workweek?
Yes, absolutely.
So one of the things I mentioned a couple
of times there and just to reiterate,
anytime you're not driving your vehicle
and you're not driving alone, you're
going to be saving money.
You can watch that money kind of be saved as you sit,
and you leave your car on the driveway.
You can leave it.
You can go past it on your bike and think about the money
that you're saving.
So that's really anytime you're not driving,
you're going to save that money.
How do most folks split the cost between the driver
and passengers?
So I mentioned this a little bit.
But just there's different ways of doing it.
And as we said, it's really down to the individuals
how you work it out.
So some people, what they do--
and I think we talked about this with our example here, Thomas--
people switch off driving.
So maybe they trade week to week or month to month.
So you're only driving half as much.
And you use each other's vehicles.
If, though, maybe only one person has a car, again,
you can set up a relationship to say, well, maybe someone else
will fill up the tank once a week.
Or, you use that commute cost calculator
to figure out what the trip would be
and reimburse them for that amount of money.
It's a discussion.
It's something where there's no sort of hard-and-fast rule.
Again, you and your carpool partner
will kind of figure out what's a fair and reasonable amount
to do that.
Some people choose not to do it at all.
Some people say, you know what?
I'll drive.
You're in charge of getting the coffee every day.
And that's fine, too.
There are great options now, things like Venmo and PayPal
obviously, for transferring money.
It doesn't just have to be cash when those options are
available too.
So do carpools just split the cost of gas?
Or, do they also factor in the wear and tear on the car?
How do you determine the cost of that?
So again, it's really up to both parties.
Certainly, use that commute cost calculator
if you want to include that wear and tear,
or you can take that out as well.
Or, you can use the IRS reimbursement
rate per mile, which is currently about $0.54 a mile.
So it's really down to you.
Again, it's down to you as sort of the people in the carpool.
You have that relationship.
You discuss what works.
And certainly, be flexible with it.
You might find over time that it feels like maybe you're
not getting reimbursed enough, or you can contribute more.
So certainly, there's different ways of looking at that.
I have a few more questions in here.
What are resources for companies to implement incentives?
My company said it would cost them too much to do it.
One second here.
So really, it's something that is something
that a company needs to budget for if they want to look at.
But one recommendation I would make
is that you need to build a case for it
and find the right budget to take to try and request it
from.
And it might be a longer-term process.
It might not be that immediately, we
can turn around and give everybody
$50 for riding their bike.
But maybe, there's a broader strategy
that this plugs into, a sustainability strategy,
a corporate social responsibility
strategy, that over time this could get built into a budget.
It's certainly not something we see every company do
in terms of reimbursement.
But it is something that can be--
building a case for it, thinking about it long-term,
and identifying maybe the best place to draw that from
is probably a strategic way to go about that.
What else do we have here?
I looked into vansharing.
But it's $1,000 a month.
It's hard to motivate five people in a rural setting.
Any ideas on how to decrease vanpool costs?
I think it is about increasing the number of people
in that van.
The more people in the van, you can reduce the cost of that.
So really, I think it relies on getting the message out
about the vans that are available.
If they're coming from a particular area,
and you're in a workplace, how do you
promote that as something that might be interesting to them?
Doing a MassRIDES survey, identifying
where everybody's living, you might
be able to identify a pocket of people.
So even though five people have sort of
said they might be interested, there
might be a few other folks that you could contact already
because you know they're all in that similar area.
So trying to do that might be helpful.
And Diane thank you.
Just to add to that, so MassRIDES and Bay State
Commute, we can help find those riders for the vanpool.
So we can dig into it that way as well.
We can do those events.
We can do matching events to really drum that support up.
So absolutely, that this is--
the message should be if this is something you're interested in,
and the challenge is getting people
to be motivated by it, that's absolutely
our area of expertise.
So that's the kind of thing we can come in and help you with.
There was another question in here.
Does depreciation cost take in the time a car is owned
versus saving on accrued mileage?
That is a good question.
I don't think it does.
So the AAA does consider the depreciation.
I don't think the calculator is balancing that off
against the accrued mileage.
And obviously, you're absolutely right.
If you still own the car that you're going to need anyway,
that is a sunk cost obviously that you're going to incur.
The ideal situation is that you don't get that extra car.
You don't get a new car.
But yes, certainly some of that depreciation,
some of that insurance, is going to be
a cost that is kind of baked in if you have that vehicle
already.
So that's certainly worth thinking about.
But again, shaving off that cost of gas,
shaving off the cost of--
you might even be reducing insurance because you're not
driving as much.
That's all part of those savings.
Yes.
So what we'll do is we'll send through the link
to the 2017, which is the latest AAA guide.
There may be another one coming out very soon for 2018.
They usually come out around this time of year.
So we'll certainly send that out to everyone
so that can be seen.
Just looking through here, I don't
see any further questions.
So seeing no further questions, I just
wanted to thank you all for your time.
Hopefully, this has been useful to you.
We'll be able to circulate a recording of this.
The presentation will be up on YouTube.
So again, you can look at it.
You can share with your networks.
And again, you can use to share at your worksite too to kind
of share some of this knowledge and these tips
amongst your workplace.
But certainly appreciate your time.
As I mentioned, if there's any further questions,
certainly reach out to us directly here at MassRIDES.
And we can kind of follow up with you.
But for now, thanks very much for joining us.
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