Parking | Access to Car Share

Access to Car Share Overview

Vanpooling and carpooling are shared ride arrangements where multiple individuals travel together in a single vehicle for their regular commute.

Types of Car Shares
  • Carpool: Typically involves 2-5 people using a privately-owned vehicle. The driver may rotate among participants, and costs like fuel and tolls are often shared.
  • Vanpool: A more formalized service typically involving 5-15 commuters using a dedicated, often company-sponsored or third-party-provided, vehicle. Vanpools usually have a consistent driver and a fixed route, with costs (vehicle lease, insurance, maintenance, fuel) split among the riders.

Both models reduce the number of single-occupancy vehicles on the road, leveraging existing roadway capacity more efficiently.

Land Use

Vanpooling and carpooling have a significant positive impact on land use, primarily through parking efficiency.

  • Reduced Parking Demand: This is the most direct land use benefit. By moving multiple people in one vehicle, these programs drastically reduce the amount of land required for parking at employment centers, commercial areas, and major venues. This frees up valuable urban land for more productive uses like green space, housing, or commercial development.
  • Supports Employment Centers: Makes large employment campuses (e.g., hospitals, corporate centers, industrial parks) more accessible and sustainable without requiring endless parking expansion.
    Park-and-Ride Lots: Vanpools and carpools often use strategically located park-and-ride lots, which are a more efficient use of land than providing parking for every commuter at the final destination.
Costs for Access to Car Share
  • User Costs:
    • Carpool: Very low. Costs are limited to shared fuel, tolls, and wear-and-tear, representing significant savings compared to driving alone.
    • Vanpool: Low to moderate. Riders typically pay a monthly fare ($50 - $300, depending on trip length and number of riders) that covers all vehicle-related expenses. This is almost always far less than the cost of owning, insuring, and fueling a personal vehicle for the commute.
  • Public/Employer Costs:
    • Program Administration: $50,000 - $150,000+ annually for a regional program providing matching services, promotion, and incentives.
    • Vanpool Subsidies: Public agencies or employers may subsidize vanpool leases or rider fares to encourage participation.
    • Infrastructure: Costs for designating and signing HOV/Carpool lanes and providing preferred parking.
Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) Impact

High Positive Impact

  • Direct Vehicle Reduction: Each vanpool or carpool directly removes multiple single-occupancy vehicles from the road for the entire commute trip, leading to a direct, one-to-many reduction in VMT.
  • Congestion Reduction: By carrying more people per vehicle, vanpools and carpools increase the person-throughput of existing roadways, helping to mitigate congestion during peak hours.
  • Long-Distance Commutes: Vanpools are particularly effective at reducing VMT for longer commutes (20+ miles) that are less feasible by transit or biking, targeting some of the highest per-commute VMT trips.
Supporting Strategies
  • High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) Lanes: Dedicated lanes that prioritize vehicles with multiple occupants provide a tangible time-saving incentive, making carpooling and vanpooling more attractive.
  • Commuter Matching Services: Online platforms or services that help connect potential carpool and vanpool riders based on their home/work locations and schedules. This is a core function of many regional TDM programs.
  • Preferred Parking: Reserved, convenient parking spots for carpools and vanpools at workplaces and park-and-ride lots.
  • Financial Incentives: Employer-provided subsidies for vanpool fares or pre-tax commuter benefits that can be used for carpooling expenses.
  • Guaranteed Ride Home (GRH): Providing a GRH benefit for carpool and vanpool users addresses the emergency flexibility concern, just as it does for transit users.
Additional Resources

Planning Resources

  • Carpool & Vanpool - CDOT
  • Way to Go | Denver Regional Council of Governments
  • RideshareOnline.com
  • Carpool Council - Vanpool Council - Association for Commuter Transportation (ACT)
  • Modeling and Calculator Tools for State and Local Transportation Resources
  • Rural and Mountain Community Vanpools: CDOT

Funding Opportunities

  • VanGo Vanpools – Transportation choices for Colorado’s North Front Range.
  • Vanpool Pricing and Financing Guide: Center for Urban and Transportation Research
  • Commute with Enterprise
  • Colorado Car Share
  • Urbanized Area Formula Grants (§5307): For transit in urbanized areas.
  • Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Program
  • Employer Contributions: A major funding source, where employers directly subsidize vanpool fares or provide other incentives as part of their benefits package.
  • Office of Innovative Mobility (OIM) Grants — Colorado Department of Transportation
  • DRCOG Innovative Mobility Set-Aside

Case Studies

  • My Way to Go - Denver, CO
  • Vanpool Program - King County Metro (Seattle, WA)
  • Commuter Connections - Washington D.C. Region)
  • Google & Apple Employee Shuttles (Silicon Valley, CA)