What is a viable alternative commute?

It is relatively easy to identify an alternative way for someone to travel to work.

A journey planner may show that an employee could, technically:

• Walk.

• Cycle.

• Catch a bus.

• Take a train.

• Use more than one mode.

• Share a car with somebody making a similar journey.

But that does not mean any of those options represents a realistic alternative to their current commute.

For workplace travel planning, the more useful question is:

Would this journey actually be credible for this employee, on the days and at the times they need to travel?

That is the difference between a possible alternative and a viable alternative commute.

Possible does not necessarily mean practical

Imagine an employee normally drives 25 minutes to work.

A journey planner shows that they can also get there by public transport.

Technically, an alternative exists.

But what if that journey:

• Takes 75 minutes.

• Requires two changes.

• Costs significantly more.

• Does not get them to work in time for an early shift.

• Includes a long walk at either end.

It would be difficult to describe that as a meaningful alternative to their current journey.

The same applies to walking and cycling.

A route appearing between somebody’s home and workplace does not automatically mean that making the journey on foot or by bike represents a credible everyday commute.

If workplace travel analysis counts every technically possible journey as an opportunity for change, it can very quickly overstate what is realistic.

What makes an alternative commute viable?

There is no single test that works for every person or workplace.

Viability is about comparing an alternative with the reality of the employee’s current journey.

Some of the main things to consider are:

Journey time

An alternative does not necessarily have to be as quick as driving to be useful.

Someone may accept a slightly longer journey if it is cheaper, more predictable or means they do not have to drive.

But there comes a point where the difference becomes unrealistic.

The important thing is to compare the actual journeys rather than simply recording that an alternative exists.

Cost

Cost can significantly affect the attractiveness of a commute.

Public transport fares should reflect the tickets or discounts actually available where possible.

Driving costs should also be considered consistently. Fuel alone does not always represent the full cost of making a journey by car.

An alternative that saves an employee a meaningful amount of money may remain attractive even if it takes slightly longer.

Equally, an option that is substantially more expensive may be difficult to present as an improvement.

Working times

The journey needs to work when the employee actually travels.

A frequent bus service during the middle of the day is of little help to somebody whose shift starts before the first service arrives.

This is particularly important for organisations with:

• Shift workers.

• Early starts.

• Late finishes.

• Weekend working.

• Variable schedules.

Workplace travel analysis should therefore consider actual working patterns rather than assume everybody travels during standard office hours.

Journey complexity

Two journeys with the same overall travel time can feel very different.

A direct 40-minute bus journey is not the same proposition as a 40-minute journey involving two trains, tight interchanges and several walking stages.

The number of interchanges, waiting time and perceived reliability all affect whether an alternative is genuinely useful.

Practical constraints

Transport infrastructure is only one part of a commute.

An employee may need a vehicle during the working day for their job.

Caring responsibilities may affect their route or the times they travel.

Their journey may involve another destination before or after work.

A route can look perfectly reasonable when analysed simply as "home to workplace, and back again" while being unsuitable once the reality of the employee’s day is taken into account.

Good workplace travel analysis therefore needs to consider practical circumstances rather than treating every employee as though they make the same simple return journey.

Car sharing can be a viable alternative too

Not every realistic alternative involves switching to walking, cycling or public transport.

For some employees, car sharing may offer a practical way to reduce single-occupancy car journeys while retaining much of the flexibility of travelling by car.

But two employees who both drive are not automatically a useful match.

Within CalCommuter, a viable car-share opportunity requires employees to:

• Travel to the same workplace.

• Start and finish work within 30 minutes of each other.

• Live within one mile of each other.

• Have at least one commuting day in common.

The number of shared commuting days then matters.

If two employees commute on all the same days, car sharing could potentially provide an alternative throughout their normal commuting week.

If they have only some days in common, it can still be useful, but it is only a partial alternative.

For example, two employees might both commute on Wednesday and Thursday, while one also travels to work on Monday, and the other on a Saturday.

Car sharing could therefore replace some solo car journeys, but another viable alternative would still be needed on Monday / Saturday if the aim were to replace each employee’s solo commute more completely.

This distinction matters when moving from simply identifying alternatives to understanding how strong the opportunity really is.

Viable does not mean somebody will choose it

Identifying a viable alternative does not mean predicting that an employee will change how they travel.

People choose their commute for many reasons:

• Habit.

• Convenience.

• Familiarity.

• Reliability.

• Comfort.

• Perceived safety.

• Cost.

• Flexibility.

• Personal preference.

A journey can therefore be viable without being immediately attractive to the employee.

The purpose of identifying viable alternatives is not to tell somebody how they should travel.

It is to establish where there is a credible opportunity, without them having to do all the leg work to find it.

The next question can then be:

What, if anything, is stopping this employee or group from using that alternative?

That may uncover something the organisation can address.

Or it may confirm that the employee simply prefers their current journey.

Both are useful things to understand.

Knowing who has no viable alternative is just as important

Viable alternative analysis should not only identify who could travel differently.

It should also identify employees for whom no credible alternative currently exists.

That is valuable information at the worksite and organisation level.

An employee may:

• Live too far from the workplace for walking or cycling to be realistic.

• Have no public transport service that works with their shift.

• Need a vehicle during the working day.

• Have caring responsibilities that make other options impractical.

• Have no suitable car-share match.

• Face a combination of these constraints.

In those cases, continuing to drive may simply be the only practical option.

Understanding the size and characteristics of this group prevents organisations from overstating their mode shift or emissions reduction potential.

It also helps distinguish between two very different questions:

Where could employees realistically travel differently using the options that exist today?

and:

Where would infrastructure, transport services or workplace arrangements need to change before another option became viable?

Some employees may already have a strong alternative and only need information or support.

Others may need a more structural intervention before meaningful change is possible.

And for some journeys, driving may remain the only realistic answer.

A useful workplace travel analysis should make all three groups visible.

Why viable alternatives matter at organisational level

Identifying a viable alternative for an individual employee is useful.

But the real organisational value often comes from looking at the pattern across a whole worksite or group of worksites - whether in the same organisation or in the same area.

Imagine an organisation or place based project is considering investment in:

• Cycle shelters.

• Showers or changing facilities.

• Public transport support.

• Car-sharing initiatives.

• Parking-management measures.

It would be easy to choose an intervention because it sounds worthwhile or has worked elsewhere.

A better question is:

How many employees at this worksite could realistically benefit from it?

If very few employees have a viable cycling commute, investing heavily in new cycle facilities may have limited impact.

Another worksite within the same organisation or area might have a much higher concentration of viable cycling journeys, making the same investment considerably more useful there.

The same principle applies elsewhere.

An organisation may find that:

• One worksite has a strong concentration of viable public transport alternatives.

• Another has significant car-share potential.

• Another has relatively few viable alternatives at all.

That should influence what support is offered and where limited budgets are spent.

In other words, viable-alternative analysis can help organisations decide which “carrots” to offer, where to offer them and who they are most likely to help.

Viable alternatives are rarely distributed evenly

Workplace travel opportunities tend to cluster.

That might be around:

• A particular bus or rail corridor.

• Settlements close to a worksite.

• Areas with good cycle connections.

• Employees living close enough together to car share.

• Particular worksites with better transport accessibility.

That matters because organisations rarely have unlimited time or budget.

If one worksite has a much higher concentration of viable cycling journeys than another, it may make sense to prioritise cycling investment there.

If another has stronger public transport potential, different support may be more appropriate.

And if a worksite has very few viable alternatives, the right conclusion may be that generic employee incentives will achieve little without wider changes.

This moves workplace travel planning away from applying the same interventions everywhere.

Instead, the evidence can help answer:

Where is each type of intervention most likely to be useful?

From theoretical potential to realistic opportunity

Imagine an organisation with 2,000 employees.

It may be technically possible to identify some form of alternative journey for a very large proportion of them.

That could produce an impressive theoretical mode shift or emissions reduction figure.

But it may tell the organisation very little about what is realistically achievable.

A better analysis asks:

• How many employees have at least one viable alternative?

• How many have an alternative on all commuting days?

• How many only have an alternative on some days?

• How many currently have no viable alternative?

• Which types of alternative are most common?

• Where are those opportunities concentrated?

• Which worksites have the strongest potential?

• Which groups should be explored in more detail?

• Where could an intervention make a practical difference?

These are much more useful questions than simply asking how many theoretical alternatives can be generated.

How can you assess viable alternatives manually?

For a smaller workforce, this analysis can be carried out manually.

A sensible process might be:

1. Collect the employee’s journey origin, worksite, commuting days and working times.

2. Record how they currently travel.

3. Identify alternative journeys available at the relevant times.

4. Compare journey time and cost.

5. Consider journey complexity and interchanges.

6. Account for practical constraints.

7. Identify potential car-share matches where appropriate.

8. Remove alternatives that are clearly unrealistic.

9. Record whether alternatives work on all or only some commuting days.

10. Group the remaining opportunities by mode, geography and worksite.

11. Identify employees with no viable alternative.

12. Use targeted follow-up to understand barriers within the most relevant groups.

The main challenge is scale.

Repeating journey planning, cost calculations and viability assessments across hundreds or thousands of employees can require substantial time and specialist resource.

Consistency matters too.

If different people assess different journeys using different assumptions, the resulting analysis becomes harder to compare.

Whether the work is carried out manually, by a consultant or using software, it is worth defining the viability criteria before analysing the workforce.

From measuring commuting to understanding opportunity

Traditional workplace travel surveys are good at answering:

How do employees travel today?

Viable alternative analysis adds a much more useful question:

How could they realistically travel tomorrow?

Knowing that 70% of employees currently drive is useful.

Knowing:

• Which of those drivers have a credible alternative.

• What that alternative is.

• Whether it works on all or only some commuting days.

• Where those opportunities are concentrated.

• And which employees currently have no viable alternative.

is much more actionable.

At an individual level, this can help employees understand realistic options for their own journey without having to do the leg work to find them, understand their cost, and how long they take in their context.

At an organisational level, it can help decide:

• Which groups to engage.

• Which barriers to investigate.

• Which workplace interventions to prioritise.

• Where investment is most likely to help.

• Where more structural change may be required.

• What level of change is actually realistic.

This is why CalCommuter analyses current journeys alongside viable alternatives rather than simply presenting every journey that could theoretically be made.

The objective is not to maximise the number of alternatives shown.

It is to identify the ones worth knowing about.

Because in workplace travel planning, possible and practical are not the same thing.