AgdaPkt 2016-05-09 Interview, Closed and Joint SA PFA

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9.0 - Page 38 Executive Summary This project was undertaken to gather data that would inform the Palo Alto Transportation Management Association (TMA) and the Redwood City government on how to improve sustainable transportation in their respective downtowns. (See Figure 1 for Palo Alto downtown). Methods of analysis included conducting qualitative in-person surveys about transit preferences and incentives in Palo Alto, and performing cross-tabulations on prior survey data for Redwood City. Results from the Palo Alto employee and employer surveys show that most employees who drive repark their cars every few hours. These employees were categorized as direct commuters and transfer commuters, based on whether their commutes would require transfers between transit agencies. The subsidy would be more difficult to administer for transfer commuters due to the confusing price structure for transfers between agencies. Of those employees who would most benefit from transit use, SamTrans would be the best transit agency to subsidize. Survey findings show that small business managers don't imagine they could reduce single-occupancy vehicle (SOV) trips because they employ too few employees to make a difference. This report builds on the survey findings to create three plausible Palo Alto TMA budget allocations for the transit subsidy pilot program they plan to implement. This report also includes key marketing messages to best convince both employers and employees of the value and significance of using public transit. The Palo Alto survey had limitations. We were not able to interview more than four employers. Thus it is important not to over generalize the findings or claims of employers as it may not pertain to all businesses in Palo Alto. Additionally, most of the employees surveyed were client-facing personnel. For Redwood City, we found that the most popular incentives for taking transit were financial incentives or flexible schedules for city employees, and GoPasses or other discounted transit passes for employees of other businesses. We also found that the employees least likely to be receptive to any incentives are those who work long or irregular hours. While these findings could be useful in beginning an incentive plan, we recommend similar cross-tabulation analysis of other extant surveys conducted for Redwood City employees, which asked more questions e.g. about employee demographics, worksite size, and business sector.