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RideFinders Honored with 2020 Commuting Options- Vanpooling Award from ACT

Aug 06, 2020

RideFinders, the region’s ridesharing resource, was recently honored by the Association for Commuter Transportation (ACT) with the 2020 Commuting Options –Vanpooling award for its “Fall in Love with Vanpooling” campaign.

 

This campaign utilized a multi-pronged approach that incorporated an integrated communications strategy to start new, healthy vanpools, support existing vanpools, expand vanpool usage by providing financial incentives, direct recruitment, and placement in existing vanpools and a call-to-action marketing campaign. This campaign yielded the following results:

  • Provided over $10,000 in financial incentives to vanpools.
  • 71 commuters placed into existing vanpools.
  • Started 12 new vanpools.
  • Hosted a “Fall in Love with Vanpooling Challenge” to encourage vanpoolers to record their vanpool trips onto a trip calendar to capture quantitative data. During this challenge, vanpoolers captured 1,519 vanpool trips, prevented 70,975 lbs. of emissions, saved  $44,784 and reduced car trips by 1,185. There was 77,885 miles not driven during the challenge period.
  • Generated over 1,500,000 impressions from paid media which includes newspaper advertisements, Virginia Video Network (VVN) total in-store plays and social media posts.

“This award is a testament to Central Virginians commitment to vanpooling rather than the drive alone to commute to work. While most of the campaign was completed before the pandemic, we’re proud to partner with GRTC and our three vanpool vendors to still assist vanpoolers during this time as more people are returning back to worksites,” said Von Tisdale, RideFinders’ executive director. 

Von Tisdale, on behalf of RideFinders, accepted the award virtually.

The Commuting Options Awards recognizes an exemplary program, policy, or service that promotes trip reductions and mode shift and have clear goals and demonstrate progress towards achieving those goals. The Association for Commuter Transportation (ACT) is an international association and leading advocate for commuter transportation and transportation demand management (TDM).