Howard County employees are being encouraged to participate in the county’s Rideshare program, joining other residents who already can receive carpooling assistance.
“The program will encourage county employees to carpool and be matched up with other employees who live in close proximity to one another and then who work close to each other,” said Renee Robertson, coordinator of Commuter Solutions of Howard County, which provides free carpool matching services.
The improved Rideshare program will allow employees to go to an intranet site to register and be matched with others based on criteria including office location and number of work days and hours, said county spokesman Kevin Enright.
Employees also can see the real-time savings on how much money they’ll save by carpooling, Robertson said.
Under the previous carpool program, matching tools and a cost-savings calculator were not in place, Robertson said. Employees who applied to carpool were simply given preferential parking.
“It was limited and not widely used,” she said.
Howard County Executive Ken Ulman has introduced a slew of initiatives to save gas and promote a better environment.
In July, he announced a nearly 60 percent cutback on county-issued, take-home vehicles. The fleet is set to be reduced from 207 to 119 by September, in a move expected to save around $700,000 a year.
Ulman also introduced a new work schedule to allow some county employees to work four 10-hour days a week or 80 hours in nine days, allowing one day every two weeks in which employees can stay home.
It’s still too early to gauge how many employees are going to take advantage of the new carpooling initiative, Robertson said.
“It’s just another piece of the big pie that the executive has for creating a greener environment,” she said.
