move is a project within the scope of the Life program of the European Union - Executive Board XI (Project no. LIFE/D/A171/D/00030/BRM). Preparation for the operative part of the project was commenced in the spring of 1995. The project had a term of 3 years and terminated in April 1998. The Department of Environmental Protection in the "Freie Hansestadt" town of Bremen was responsible for the project management.
In a later project phase ("expansion to other companies") the brewery BECK & CO was won as an associated project partner.
Kraft-Jacobs-Suchard has three operational locations in the town of Bremen with very differing conditions as regards their location, link to transport services and, as a result, the use of these means of transport (modal split). All three locations were integrated and demonstrated in the project.
Location at Langemarckstrasse , (Administrative Central Office for Germany) in a central position of the town with above-average local public transport links and a respectively high proportion of bicycles and users of the local public transport facilities; 900 employees, a carpark for 53 cars and a carpark building for 320 cars, and subsequently no lack of carpark space and thus little incentive to act.
Location at Holzhafen , in an industrial area in the west of Bremen with a relatively good link to the local public transport network; production and warehouse, 350 employees working in shift operation, parking facilities for 340 cars.
Location at Hemelingen, solitary location in an industrial area on the periphery, in the east of Bremen with an inadequate link to the local public transport facilities (above all in the evening) and due to a lack of neighbouring businesses, slight chance of a noticeable improvement in the offer of local public transport facilities; production, 700 employees working in shift operation, parking facility for 350 cars.
During the term of the project, there was a tendency towards reducing workplaces at both production locations, partially as a result of transferring task areas to locations outside Bremen, partially due to streamlining measures and also as a result of a concentration process in favour of the central municipal administrative location (thus compensating for the reduction in working places, which has been evident there, too).
Organising information and campaigns at the workplace.
Offering a reduced fare Job-Ticket for all employees.
Providing company workers with their own individual public transport timetables.
Establishing a carpool scheduling service.
Establishing privileged parking rights for members of carpools.
Offering a move guaranteed mobility to all employees who commute with public transport services and carpool schemes.
Establishing a permanent information service for business commuter needs.
Offering a range of practical services to promote the formation of carpools (e.g. organising informal "get-togethers" to help individuals make personal contacts, point out the financial advantages as opposed to driving by car, answer any questions concerning insurance and tax deductions, explain their personal CO2 balance sheet, etc.) and to provide follow-up services once they have been established (e.g. providing assistance to employees who move to a different shift or job location, move to a different address, or who may have personal difficulties with their present carpool, etc.).
Establishing car-sharing stations at the workplace and at selected residential area sites with special conditions being offered to employees who participate in the car-sharing scheme.
future possibility of an improved rail or regional rail connection provided that the railway station Neustadt is renovated, the access footpath to the company is restored (approx. 300 m) and the offer of trains is increased.
The successful car-sharing service requires a sufficiently large pool of potential participants seeking or offering a journey with specific wishes (driver/passenger). Within the scope of this project the following basic formula was developed: With an expected share of approx.10% of the potential car-sharing participants of all the employees (assessed from questionnaires) a total number of at least 6, 000 employees (from this or several neighbouring companies) can be regarded as the critical mass for guaranteeing a car-sharing probability of about 20%.
The size of the staff at Kraft-Jacobs-Suchard is distinctly below the so-called "critical mass" at all three locations in Bremen. Therefore inter-company cooperation is necessary. Even together with BECK & CO, the "critical mass" is still not attained. This is the reason why it was not possible to test all the planned elements of the service offer sufficiently in practice, and in the second half of the project, a re-allocation of the main issues in favour of the development of an inter-company transport service offer resulted for all the employers in Bremen.
The "Guaranteed mobility" tested within the scope of the project (derived from the US coinage of the "guaranteed ride home") can also function under the European frame conditions! The system developed in the project for this purpose is simple and transferable; misuse can largely be ruled out. The complicated precautionary procedures devised at the beginning for limiting risks (e.g. as regards the definition of entitled groups and participation requirements) have not proved successful.
With the integration of further employees in the vicinity not only the pool of potential car-sharing participants can be increased; the differences in location and situation due to the type of company can partially be compensated for, or sensibly utilised and the problematic aspects of the car-sharing service (such as flexi-time, part-time production and administration, etc.) caused by shift-operation or differing working time rhythms can be reduced.
Nevertheless, mobility concepts have to be related in detail to the respective location of a business. A differentiation must be made, if necessary, between different businesses belonging to the same enterprise - depending on their location, transport link and parking space situation (Example: Kraft-Jacobs-Suchard).
The timely and serious participation of employees' councils and/or personnel committees is of exceptional importance. Without their support mobility concepts stand no chance.
Services offered on the private sector of the economy that are in conformity with the market, are more readily accepted than subsidised "projects" with high demands on the business's own engagement.
The companies expect that mobility concepts are planned in such a way that they are suitable for internal and external marketing. This requires the implementation of professional advertising material and an interface for "ecology assessment". Complicated and too strongly divergent, multi-level concepts scarcely have a chance of being put into practice. The concentration on individual main offers is much more promising than an offer-mix of the most differing mobility services. Transparent, compact service offers can be introduced short or medium-term; agreement on overall concepts takes years and is hardly possible within the scope of a project of limited duration. Projects aiming at changing mobility behaviour - and thus a change in awareness - at least need a long time to get under way. This fact is confirmed by the experience made in all the other similar projects.
The companies are more inclined to want to bear the cost of a modern, pleasurable service than assume the ordeal of a difficult "project". "Full-Service" is in higher demand than solutions which create a lot of work for the company and demand a great deal of initiative. This is particularly true where "inter-company co-operation" is concerned, which, quite rightly, is considered to be a difficult field and for which therefore, the person performing the service has to provide a feasible solution. Costs for providing a mobility service are accepted if sufficient (and economical) utilisation can be shown. Economical utilisation is achieved above all when a link to initial stages of parking space management is established and the parking space requirement can be reduced, thus creating a certain amount of flexibility in the utilisation of valuable areas. Economical utilisation can also be shown when one considers that in Germany today, according to investigations made by the social insurance for occupational accidents, more accidents are already caused on the way to work than during the working process itself. Thus, all the attempts which speak out against single-passenger car occupation in commuter traffic and offer sensible alternatives, gain significance.
Projects that require the frequent or permanent presence of external consultants and service-providers in the business are - at least outside the funded project models - for the most part impracticable. Either the business hires its own staff or it buys a "(Full)Service". This is true at least for larger enterprises and under the general conditions prevailing today, in particular with regard to the lack of legal requirements for mobility planning within the company - as we know them to be, for example, in the USA - and the almost completely non-existent parking space management at the companies (and partly also the municipalities). Without legal requirements and supportive fiscal/political measures (e.g. fiscal law revaluation of cost-free parking space offers for the employees) and without any particular pressure due to problematic issues (e.g. bottle-necks in the transport infrastructure or due to a lack of parking space) the companies remain largely resistant to "interference from outside".
11. The offer provided by Car-Sharing (StadtAuto) for journeys from home to work as an integral part of the "guaranteed mobility" offer has not proved to be an economically profitable solution, when one considers that stations have been set up outside Bremen and vehicles have also been procured specially for this purpose. On the other hand, the StadtAuto station set up at the centrally situated business location of Kraft-Jacobs-Suchard has become permanently establish due to the implementation-mix in the urban surroundings with a normal degree of utilisation. Contrary to the peripheral location, the set-up of car-sharing offers at companies in the municipal density is therefore to be assessed as a sensible and economically feasible idea, as other examples also show (e.g. the Health Authority in Bremen).
12. For the move - project the strongest opposition resulted due to the fact that parking space management in the central company location, planned within the scope of the project and also supported by the company management, could not be carried through due to the opposition from the employee's council. Thus the project was solely at the mercy of the positive effects of the advertising, services and incentives within the scope of the move project. A dynamic of its own in the sense of a continuing process of changing behavioural patters in favour of a choice of transport for the employees, geared to the needs of the environment, could not be produced in this way. The evaluation of other examples and projects shows that this realisation can be generalised. Without the interplay of "push and pull" measures, only modest successes can, as a rule, be achieved.
The project participants were confronted with a large number of difficulties during the project, which sometimes even seemed to make the success of the project look uncertain. As it became evident that a part of the difficulties could not be solved within the project either (this concerns in particular the aspect of "mass" lacking for a successful car-sharing service) the service offer was developed further for a wide introduction on the market in the town of Bremen.
To this end special software for the inter-company car-sharing service and the guaranteed mobility service were completed, a trade name created, an advertising campaign organised, general terms of business and service agreements drawn up and a strategy developed for company acquisition. All this is described in detail in the final report and above all in the enclosed CD ROM. All the material is compiled on the CD ROM (including a demo version of the software) and can also be found in the Internet under the address "move-bremen.org". The production of the CD ROM and design of the Internet page are integral parts of the final report.
Following the display image there is a short resumé of the car-sharing service offer (RidematchingService / FahrgemeinschaftsService), almost in the original style of a self-portrayal used for the first contacts with the company. From this a first impression - in keeping with this short summary - should be made of this the new service offer.
At the moment, the introduction of the RidematchingService (FahrgemeinschaftsService) is taking place on the market, and was developed from this project (or largely during this project) in Bremen as an offer of services in the private sector for private and public employers. The market introduction is effected first of all in the close vicinity of Kraft-Jacobs-Suchard and BECK & CO, i.e. within the municipal area. In the initial acquisition phase only the larger employers with over 400 employees are being approached. Until the "critical mass" totalling 6,000 is reached in companies located in the vicinity, all the agreements made with potential companies until then remain without obligation. Upon reaching the critical mass the contract completed will become effective and the service will commence. The previous acquisition level allows us to hope that after the summer break in September 1988 the service can be commenced. The contract negotiations are being held with companies of the most differing size and character (production businesses and also banks, insurances, authorities, universities, industrial parks, etc.). The service providers are the StadtAuto GmbH Bremen and the Institute for Transport Ecology (BVÖ) who will be founding a new joint company for this purpose.
A presentation of our services in your organisation, including the supply of professional advertising material for all the employees (brochures, posters, registration forms, coupon booklets, etc.) as well as material for the continued advertising program for these services.
Ridematching suitable commuter partners for employees who are interested in carpooling and work in business companies and for the authorities within the entire Bremen area (between Wilhelmshaven, Cuxhaven, Buxtehude, Hanover and Osnabrück). The wishes of a business comany's employees to offer and seek a commuter ridematching service are handled by the FahrgemeinschaftsService using tailor-made software. At the same time, the respective working hours (also shift hours), special wishes (e.g. only twice a week), maximum detour allowance and individual wishes (non-smoker/smoker, woman wanting only to travel with another woman, possibly hobbies) are taken into account. If required, the software can also be installed for Online use with the customer. The system fulfils the data privacy protection requirements.
For the "ecological assessment" the business company receives continued evaluation in the form of tables and charts depicting the environmental effects achieved (calculation and overview of the reduction in car-miles/pollutant emission/fuel consumption/space utilisation, etc.).
Employees who commute to and from work with the carpool system should not be at a disadvantage if the carpool service should not function for some unforeseen reason. In certain cases, the employees can hire a taxi up to a maximum of DM 50 without having to pay cash, for their journey home, to work, or to a convenient train station, etc. Guaranteed mobility is valid if, for company reasons, overtime is necessary, the work has to be terminated earlier due to an acute illness or due to the illness of a family member, or the commuting partner fails to go on this journey as intended.
The authorised senior person at the place of employment countersigns a taxi coupon and the costs for the taxi will be carried and paid for by the Ridematching Service.
The guarantee cases actually availed of (including the administrative expenses) are financed from the flat rate contributions. At regular intervals the flat rate payment is aligned with the actual implementation by the authorised employers.
This model, which is well-known in the USA, has had a successful trial phase in Bremen. 1) The misuse of this offer can be largely prevented by the necessity for a counter signature by the senior company employee. The flat rate agreed upon with the service supplier protects the firms from any unexpected risks.
The advantage of this system is obvious. Even if there are only a small number of employees working in a firm or with an authority, that are interested in joining a carpool, there are still chances of finding a matching commuter outside the company within the address pool.
As a result no laborious preliminary investigations and assessment of potential users within the firm are necessary. The business company decides whether this service is to be made available to his employees, and the Ridematching Service (FahrgemenschaftsService) takes care of the advertising and organisation.