Report of the Hundred and Twenty First Round Table on Transport Economics held in Paris on 29-30th November 2001 on the following topic

Encouraging wage earners to use public transport has a vital role to play in meeting environment objectives, particularly the challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Changing people's behavior calls for action in the workplace and one option open to employers is to recruit mobility managers whose task is to help reduce employees' dependence on private car use. Governments can support such initiatives by running information campaigns, by publishing practical guides to incentive schemes and by harmonizing regulatory and fiscal frameworks. Round Table 121 was devoted to this topic and opened with a discussion of the provision of free parking facilities to company employees in the United States, a practice that has many knock-on effects and ramifications. One solution is for companies to replace free parking with cash-out schemes under which financial benefits are given to employees who choose not to make use of their free parking space. The Round Table then proceeded to consider several examples of employee mobility schemes in Europe--pilot project "Sanfte Mobilitäts-Partnershaft"--Company management of staff's travel choices [model establishments: BMLFUW, theFederal Ministry for Agriculture and Forestry ... ; UBA GmbH, the Federal Office for the Environment; the AVL List GmbH (research company); Tulln State Hospital; and the Medienhaus Vorarlberg (newspaper publisher)]--and ended by drawing conclusions of interest to local, regional and national authorities aiming to chart a course of action towards achieving the goal of sustainable transport.--Publisher's description.