Unlimited Access Programs and Transportation Demand Management: UCLA BruinGO!
James Andrew
Kelli Swanson

Expanding transportation capacity through construction of more roads, parking facilities or rail or bus networks is both costly and can take years to implement. As a result, communities around the world have experimented with programs that combine targeted marketing campaigns with either positive or negative incentives to lure people from one over utilized and costly mode (the car) to other modes of transportation (walking, bicycling, transit). When such programs are successful, they can lower the demand for car travel and reduce the need to provide expensive facilities to accommodate that demand at a fraction of the cost of expanding transportation capacity. This approach to transportation planning, known as transportation demand management (TDM), can come in numerous forms. These range from “push” strategies such as parking pricing, taxes and tolls, and traffic calming that make driving alone more expensive or less attractive, to “pull” strategies such as better marketing, flexible work schedules, location efficient mortgages, carsharing, and improving transit security that increase the value or awareness of the value of other transportation alternatives. A very promising strategy of the “pull” variety is unlimited transit access for university students. Recently implemented at the University of Minnesota in 2001, U-Pass programs use a TDM strategy that relies on cooperation between the transit agency and the university to provide fare-free transit rides for students, and sometimes faculty and staff, who either pay a fee for a pass or automatically receive one upon registering as a student or becoming an employee. While the program at the University of Minnesota is fairly new, a study of a similar program at UCLA produced some interesting results on the effectiveness of the program.

In 2000, UCLA began its partnership with the Santa Monica city bus service to offer free unlimited rides to UCLA students, faculty, and staff. All buses on the system were equipped with devices that could read university ID cards to verify university affiliation. UCLA then pays the Blue Bus, as the agency is known, $0.45 per ride. UCLA pays for the cost of the program through parking revenues from its scarce parking facilities. The program, known as BruinGO, was heavily marketed in campus admissions materials and around campus to make students and staff aware.

The program has proved to be highly effective. Since the UCLA program began in 2000, the number of students, faculty and staff commuting by transit to campus has jumped dramatically from 7.6% before initiation of the program to 13.1% in its first year. More than 1,000 commuters stopped driving to campus after the program started, freeing up space on the lengthy parking waiting list at the campus for commuters who could not ride the bus or chose not to. It also lowered the demand for UCLA to build more parking structures on its highly valuable land. The report indicates that students and faculty are very fond of the program and believe that the unlimited transit access also gives students more educational and career opportunities throughout the city than previously. It has also added to the university’s financial aid for students and has allowed families of students and staff to forego the purchase of a second car in many cases. Furthermore, the reduction in SOV travel to and from the university and elsewhere has contributed to reducing traffic congestion and air pollution in the city.

The cost to UCLA of the program in its pilot stage was $1.27 per person per month (this is all students, faculty, and staff, not just those who ride the bus). The revenue to pay for this comes from parking fees. In this way, UCLA has combined a “push” TDM strategy, charging a premium for parking, with its “pull” strategy of offering free bus rides to and from campus. By charging for the use of driving and subsidizing transit riders, this program has increased transit ridership considerably at almost no extra cost to the university or the city.

The success of this program and programs like it around the country has profound implications for non-university transportation planning as well. The university is essentially a large employer located within an area well-served by public transportation. Other employers could also benefit from a similar program for their employees by purchasing bulk transit passes and similarly charging for parking. This could save businesses a lot of money in downtown and other transit accessible areas through reduced need for parking spaces. Some employers have used other positive incentive programs such as parking cash-out whereby employers pay employees the cash equivalent of subsidized parking if they choose not to drive, and offering flexible work hours so that employees can choose less congested travel times to and from work.

However, there are some limitations to TDM strategies. Many TDM programs have a high benefit-cost ratio but their effect on overall travel behavior is quite modest. Often this is because these strategies are done in an isolated fashion and not as part of a larger TDM strategy that combines different programs that work in tandem with one another. Also, marketing the use of a different mode of transportation relies on the availability of high-quality service or infrastructure on that mode. This is the case for public transit, bicycling or walking. TDM strategies require the supply of faster, safer, and more reliable transportation alternatives to driving solo. Furthermore, TDM strategies may be more effective when negative incentives are included with positive incentives to switch from driving alone. Without charging more for driving, only a limited number of individuals will likely switch to a different mode of transportation.

Questions:
Are positive incentives (“pull”) more desirable to negative incentives (“push”) in transportation demand management? In what ways can they be used simultaneously?

What role can marketing play in transportation demand management?

In addition to settling the bus strike, how would you suggest improving the U-Pass program from its current form?

Is this a form of social engineering? If people prefer to drive, is this kind of manipulation of the market forcing an unwanted mode of travel?

Who benefits from U-Pass programs? Who is hurt by it?

Readings:

Fare Free Public Transit at Universities: An Evaluation by Jeffrey Brown, Daniel Baldwin Hess, and Donald Shoup

Why Manage Transportation Demand? by Todd Littman. Victoria Transportation Policy Institute

Transportation Control Measures: Commute Alternative Incentives Environmental Protection Agency