Nearly every day since 1963, Barnes Ellis has driven 10 miles to and from his Portland, Oregon, law firm.

But he has since traded his $250 monthly parking permit – and his high fuel costs – for a free transit pass. His law firm gave them to workers to promote alternatives to ugly commutes.

Ellis isn't sure if he would have given up his solo commute without the nudge.

"If you think about it, 45 years is a long habit to break," he said.

Ellis' law firm, Stoel Rives, is one of a growing number of companies turning to employee commute programmes to promote alternative transportation, boost worker quality of life and reduce carbon footprints.

Public transit, carpooling and vanpools, flextime, biking, walking and shuttles are all part of the commute programme arsenal companies are offering the US workforce, 76 per cent of whom drive to work.

With workers feeling the financial pinch from high fuel prices, many believe some of the burden should fall to the boss.

In a February TransitCenter survey, 65 per cent of employees said employers should take the lead in easing their commutes. Others said commute headaches could lead them to find another job.

"Employees are seriously considering changing jobs due to the high cost of commuting," said Larry Filler, president and CEO of TransitCenter Inc., which offers tax-free transit benefits. "This is on top of the other difficulties employees are having, such as traffic congestion."

Commutes of the future

Some municipalities and states are implementing four-day work weeks to reduce worker commutes and save money by operating one fewer day. But this isn't an option for many businesses that must service customers five or more days a week.

One popular route for many companies is telecommuting.

"It can be a real vehicle for raising employee productivity and keeping retention high at a time when… gas prices and carbon footprints are on employees' minds," said James Brooks, Cisco's director of human resources.

Over the past few years, Cisco tested its Virtual Office telecommuting technology on more than 12,000 employees worldwide – roughly 20 per cent of staff. The results: auto emissions fell by 30,435 tonnes annually and Cisco saved more than $168,000 that would have gone to buy carbon offsets.

Pre-tax commuter benefits are popular, and can even save companies money. Employees can deduct up to $115 from their paychecks each month, before taxes, to cover the cost of transit or vanpooling. This reduces payroll taxes for employers, and saves workers money. About two thirds of the employers offering pre-tax commuter benefits extend it as a subsidised fringe benefit, Filler said. Some employers also subsidise bike purchases or retrofits, including Clif Bar, which give workers up to $500.

Companies such as Google and Yahoo offer private shuttle services, while other firms are exploring vanpool services. Enterprise Rideshare, for instance, rents vans on a monthly basis in Texas, Oregon, Nevada, Georgia and California markets. The cost varies, but on average, riders typically pay between $140 and $175 per month. Interest in the services has risen dramatically over the past six months, said manager Connie McGee.

"Our calls increased by 75 per cent," McGee said. "It's been huge."

The business case

Easier worker commutes can fatten bottom lines. An internal survey at Sun Microsystems, for example, shows that workers gave 60 per cent of the time they saved commuting back to the company. In gridlocked regions throughout the country, that could add up to an extra hour each day, per telecommuter.

Reducing staff turnover costs also makes good business sense, according to Phil Winters, transportation demand management programme director at the National Center for Transit Research at the University of South Florida.

The cost to hire and retrain new staff and increase productivity to the level of the worker being replaced can be up to 1.5 times the worker's salary.

"Taking that into account, it can be a $100,000 investment, depending on the salary of people being replaced," Winters said.

Also, promoting alternative transportation can save the cost of providing parking, which can run thousands of dollars per space to build and maintain structures.

"What resources would you have to put forth to accommodate parkers?" asked Brodie Hamilton, Stanford University's director of transportation and parking services. "It can cost more than $1,000 a year to pay off the loan for each space. If they take half of that and spend $500 to subsidise [employee] transportation, they would have saved some money."

Alternative commutes, however, are not without pitfalls or challenges. Employees working from home may face distractions, lack of motivation or a yearning for social interaction, while their superiors must adjust to managing an off-site workforce.

Employees could also hesitate giving up their cars because of a fear of being stranded at work if an emergency arises, said Kit Powis, 511 Rideshare communications manager. Safety and weather concerns may keep workers from hopping on bikes. It's also hard to convince someone to choose the bus or train over their car if it will take them a lot longer to reach their destination.

The footprint

But employee commuting can make up a big chunk of a company's carbon footprint. At Genetech's South San Francisco campus, for example, employee commuting accounted for one-fifth of total emissions at that location in 2007, generating about 31,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

The company's commute programme offers a $4 daily cash incentive for alternative commuting, and it also offers a private corporate shuttle service. Genetech's efforts reduced emissions six per cent between 2006 and 2007.

More than 18,000 of Santa Clara, California-based Sun Microsystems employees use its Open Work telecommute programme, which, in 2007, helped avoid about 29,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions. The programme saved Sun nearly $68m real estate costs. Sun wants to reduce US CO2 emissions 20 per cent below 2002 levels by 2012.

The Stoel Rives law firm expanded its employee commute programme earlier this year, with the goal of reducing emissions 10 per cent by the end of 2008. It also wants 10 per cent of its workforce to give up traveling alone to work.

Getting them out of their cars

Stoel Rives runs 11 offices throughout the country. Just how each office approaches employee commuting depends on nearby resources. All workers at the Portland office, for example, received free transit passes in May, said sustainability manager Phil Moran.

Before that, Stoel Rives subsidised half the cost of the passes and participation hovered around 36 per cent, Moran said. After the free passes were handed out, that grew to 48 per cent.

Stoel Rives launched its Alternative Commute Challenge in June and promoted it via emails sent every few weeks and an alternative commute fair. Employees participate in the programme by logging into an internal web portal and recording the number of miles they traveled to and from work using alternate transportation.

Each post scores them an entry into a bi-monthly drawing for a gift certificate. To date, workers have logged in more than 277,000 "alternative" miles. About 20 people, including Barnes Ellis, turned in their parking permits.

"We have 163 (parking) spots and used to have a waiting list," Moran said. " Now we have no waiting list."

Stanford University tried to get its faculty and staff to abandon their cars after Santa Clara County approved its growth plan in 2000 with several conditions. One motivating factor: no net new peak-hour trips.

At the time, the school already had a robust commuter benefits package: Clean Air Cash, a programme that paid $160 to commuters not to drive in alone; reserved spaces and free parking for vanpools and carpools; an emergency ride home programme; and strong bicycling infrastructure.

To ramp up efforts, Stanford started the Commute Club. Stanford used GIS software and survey results, along with student and employee databases, to analyse where people live and how they travel. It worked with local transit agencies to provide free and subsidised rail and transit passes to various regions. It also increased the cost of on-campus parking permits, created an online ride match programme, expanded the university shuttle service, boosted Clean Air Cash incentives (now $282 per year), added carsharing, gave away prizes for Commute Club members, and established an extensive marketing and outreach programme.

The efforts paid off: Between 2002 and 2007, the university employee drive-alone rate dropped 20 percentage points to 52 per cent and Commute Club membership rose 82 per cent. Commuter parking permit sales fell by as much as 10 per cent.

The school's growth plan spurred the initial efforts to limit peak trips, Hamilton said, but because it views itself as a partner in the community, reducing congestion and improving air quality was the right thing to do.

A version of this article first appeared at Greenbiz.com