IN: MACOG brings employee vanpool program to region

Transportation planners hope more employers will get aboard a recently launched rideshare program for workers.

The Michiana Area Council of Governments helped launch the Enterprise Commute program earlier this year, with the first eight vans available to shuttle employees in and around Elkhart and St. Joseph counties. The partnership with car rental company Enterprise already has more than 80 participants who work at companies in Goshen, Bristol and Middlebury, according to Senior Transit Planner Jeremiah Cox.

"Enterprise already had some existing relationships, so that's why we were able to launch this so quickly with these initial users of the service. These are coming from St. Joe, Elkhart, Noble, LaGrance and LaPorte," he said at Wednesday's policy board meeting. "As long as the vanpool either starts — it could be people who live in St. Joe or Elkhart County and are leaving that area — or it's an employer within St. Joe and Elkhart County, as long as one of those two ends touches our two organized counties, they're eligible for our vanpool and the MACOG subsidies for them."

For a participating company, MACOG provides a $700 monthly subsidy toward a vehicle and the company chooses how to split any remaining cost, Cox said. He noted that the cost could be split among as many as 15 employees due to the size of the vans.

The current fleet includes six 15-passenger vans, one seven-passenger minivan and one seven-passenger SUV. MACOG Director James Turnwald said they expect to have close to 30 vans in operation in three years, and the growth of the program so far puts them in a good position.

He said MACOG will also launch a website next year that shows people the transportation options in their area, whether that means matching with a carpool, finding a bus service or renting an e-scooter.

"It will have some of that route optimization, of, ' Hey, I live in this location and I'm going here.' 'Hey, you might not know this, but there's already a vanpool program that has two seats available that you could jump into potentially,'" Turnwald said.

He said trips through the Commute program don't have to be limited to work. He said it could fill in the gaps left by fixed-route public transportation.

"It doesn't have to be the employer. We've been having some conversations with the University of Notre Dame, it could be hospitals as well. Really, we're agnostic on what the Commute trip looks like," he said. "It's just another great tool in the toolbox to be able to get people to and from work efficiently, effectively and a little bit more flexibly than what our fixed-route transit can do."

Cox said costs are lower than fixed-route transportation as well.

"The reason vanpool works so well is that basically, the most expensive part of running a city bus is really paying the driver. Paying that dedicated professional that's there to drive," he said. "The reason vanpool is such a cost-effective solution is the fact that it's literally just an employee who's driving the van, who would already make the drive anyway."

Turnwald encouraged members of the policy board, which includes mayors and other city employees, to promote the vanpool program as it picks up speed.

"As you talk to your staff, as you talk with employers, make them aware of this new program. It's a really affordable way to address a very large workforce challenge that a lot of our employers face, which is reliable transportation," Turnwald said. "This is a national partner who deals in vanpools across the country, with Enterprise. We're excited that we already have basically about eight vans in operation with about 82 participants already, and that's at the launch of this event. This is just a few months in."

___
(c)2024 The Elkhart Truth (Elkhart, Ind).
Visit The Elkhart Truth (Elkhart, Ind). at www.elkharttruth.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.