Each year, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) highlights the best of its work and the work of its partners through the annual Caltrans Excellence in Transportation Awards Program. Caltrans received nearly 100 entries from within Caltrans, public agencies, private contractors and consultants across the state.
WSP implements the 511 Carpool program contract, conducting new mobility strategies and implementation of carpool behavior change initiatives on behalf of the MTC.
MTC manages the 511 Carpool program, which encourages carpooling and vanpooling to shift travel from single occupant vehicles. A key aspect of the 511 program is conducting direct-to-consumer marketing to build awareness of carpooling, increase registrations in its carpool matching database, and increase carpooling trips.
In 2014, MTC established formal, first-of-its-kind, no-cost partnerships with private sector carpool matching apps to encourage their proliferation and use. These efforts have resulted in increased awareness and use of these apps, helping to facilitate more consistent matching between riders and drivers carpooling from origins and destinations outside the urban core.
The program developed unique campaigns to build public awareness and increase carpooling behavior, including short-term incentives that award app users with a chance to win a monetary incentive for scheduling a ride on a randomly selected day, outreach blitzes at targeted events, clever messaging on billboards, and Pandora ads. It has also used targeted emails, phone calls and in-person outreach at employers, coffee shops, and other retail locations to inform people of their carpool options.
Recently, the 511 Carpool program partnered with Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and Scoop to develop a "Carpool to BART" program, where BART provides guaranteed parking spaces until 10 a.m. for commuters carpooling to select BART station with the Scoop app. As a result of these and other campaigns, the 511 program helped facilitate more than 26,000 carpool trips on apps in the 2015-2016 fiscal year.
WSP has been at the forefront of helping transportation agencies prepare for new mobility services. The firm’s team brings together a unique combination of experience in transportation demand management, advanced technologies and public private partnerships to offer solutions that help achieve policy, planning, business strategy and operations goals with a deep understanding of both the public and private interests. WSP’s deep understanding of both the public and private interests and comprehensive capabilities with respect to new mobility services are presented at www.advancingtransport.com.
About WSP USA
WSP USA, formerly WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff, is the U.S. operating company of one of the world's leading engineering and professional services firms—WSP. Dedicated to serving local communities, we are engineers, planners, technical experts, strategic advisors and construction management professionals. WSP USA designs lasting solutions in the buildings, transportation, energy, water and environment sectors. With more than 7,000 people in 100 offices across the U.S., we partner with our clients to help communities prosper. www.wsp.com