Vanity Vanpool’s Takeover: Putting a Little Personality Behind a Greener Commute
RideFinders News
This October, Vanity Vanpool is taking over.
She’s bold. She’s hard to miss. And she has plenty to say about why driving alone doesn’t have to be the default way to get to work.
Vanity Vanpool’s Takeover is our month-long campaign putting vanpooling in the spotlight. Through social media, behind-the-scenes moments, a little group chat humor and practical information, Vanity will introduce commuters and employers to a transportation option that can make a real difference in how people get to work.
The campaign may be playful, but the reason behind it is anything but.
More people. Fewer solo trips.
For commuters traveling longer distances or heading to the same employment area, vanpooling offers something simple: share the ride instead of making every mile alone.
A vanpool brings people with similar origins, destinations and schedules together for their commute. That can mean fewer solo trips, fewer miles piling up on personal vehicles and shared commuting expenses. Depending on how a vanpool is organized, driving responsibilities may also be shared.
And there is something to be said for occasionally getting into the passenger seat, buckling up and letting somebody else handle the road.
For commuters, that can mean a different start and finish to the workday. For the region, putting more people into fewer vehicles supports the larger goals of Transportation Demand Management (TDM) by reducing drive alone vehicle trips and vehicle miles traveled while expanding practical transportation choices.
Vanpooling is a workforce conversation, too.
Transportation doesn’t stop being an employer issue once someone accepts a job. Employees still have to get there.
A long or difficult commute can affect the pool of people able to reach a worksite, particularly when a location or work schedule isn’t easily served by other transportation options. Vanpooling can add another choice to the mix by connecting employees traveling from similar areas to a common destination.
That makes vanpooling relevant to conversations about workforce access, recruitment, retention, employee benefits and sustainability.
Employers don’t have to become transportation experts to explore it, either. We work with organizations and commuters to identify transportation needs, explore potential matches and help determine whether vanpooling makes sense.
Sometimes the opportunity starts with a surprisingly simple question: Where are your employees commuting from?
Why Vanity?
Transportation information matters. How we talk about it matters, too. That’s where Vanity comes in.
Vanity Vanpool serves as an ambassador for vanpooling because she gives the commute a personality. Instead of starting with transportation terminology, she starts with experiences commuters recognize such as watching gas expenses add up, putting miles on the car, sitting in traffic, rushing out the door to meet the vanpool or realizing that today—finally—it’s somebody else’s turn to drive.
Throughout the Takeover, Vanity will show up in social media group chats, at Park & Ride lots, around vanpools and in everyday commute situations. There will be useful information along the way, but don’t expect a month of lectures about transportation.
That’s not Vanity’s style. She’d rather show you what vanpool life looks like and let you decide whether there might be a seat for you.
One commute can lead to something bigger.
Vanpooling works on a very human scale. A few people discover they are traveling in the same direction. They start sharing the trip. Their individual commutes become one.
Multiply that across workplaces and across the region, and those choices begin to matter in a much bigger way.
Fewer drive alone trips can mean fewer vehicles on the road, reduced vehicle miles traveled and lower transportation related emissions. For commuters, sharing the ride can help reduce some of the costs and wear associated with putting every workday mile on a personal vehicle.
It also gives our region something equally important: another transportation choice.
We have worked to make carpooling, vanpooling, transit, biking, walking and teleworking more accessible to the people who live and work throughout the Greater Richmond and Tri-Cities regions. Vanity Vanpool’s Takeover gives us a fresh way to tell one part of that story.
Could there be a vanpool in your future?
You don’t need to have a van. You don’t need to arrive with a fully formed group. And you certainly don’t need to figure it all out yourself.
Start with your commute. Where are you coming from? Where are you going? What time do you need to be there? We can help from there.
Throughout October, follow #VanityVanpoolsTakeover on our social channels for vanpool stories, commuter conversations, behind-the-scenes content and some appearances from Vanity Vanpool herself. And if she convinces you that the passenger seat looks pretty good, we’re ready to talk.
Vanity’s taking over. Your commute could be next.