Employer-paid transit subsidies and travel behaviour: Experimental evidence from Vancouver hotels

Abstract

We report findings from an experimental study of the impacts of employer-paid transit subsidies on workers at downtown hotels in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Partnering with the union and management of seven hotels, the regional transit agency and city government, we collected representative surveys of commuting behavior in three waves, each six months apart, in 2018 and 2019. Four of the hotels had offered a 15% transit subsidy prior to the study. We grouped six of the hotels in three similarly located pairs with the same initial subsidy condition. After the first survey wave, we provided an experimental subsidy at four hotels: 25% at one hotel in each of three pairs, and 15% at the seventh hotel. After the second survey we further increased the subsidy to 50% at two hotels. The larger the transit subsidy offered, the more employees become transit riders and the more transit-only commuting increased. Overall, a modest increase in transit-only commuting was accompanied by a reduction in auto-only and auto-and-transit commuting. It appears that transit subsidy acceptance and effectiveness can be dampened by factors such as the availability of cheap parking, or greater distance between the workplace and rapid transit, leading to variability in outcomes.

Keywords

• Transit
• Subsidy
• Commute
• Workplace
• Vancouver
• Hospitality