The impact of employer fringe benefits on commuting to work by car in Switzerland

Abstract

Many employers offer fringe benefits to their employees. Given that mobility tool ownership plays an important role in mode choice, mobility-related fringe benefits influence employees’ daily mobility decisions. However, this impact has yet to be examined in Switzerland. This paper presents the results of an online survey on mobility-related fringe benefits offered by employers in Switzerland and analyzes both who receives these benefits and how these influence the mode share for work commute trips. Our results show that 10% of commuters are offered a company car, 64% of commuters have at least one free parking option available to them at work (83% of the time offered by their employer) and 19% of commuters are offered some form of discounted PT travel card (7% a national season ticket, 6% a local season ticket and 12% a half-fare car). The proportion of days commuted to work by car is modeled using a logistic regression formulation, with free parking and public transport being significant at the 0.1% level. The computed elasticities show that having a company car and a free parking option corresponds to a 18.7% respectively 32.3% relative increase in car trips to work, whereas having a GA or local season ticket and a shower available yields a 38.1% respectively 3% relative decrease, all other things being equal. The results show that employers offering public transport discounts as opposed to company cars and free parking would encourage their employees to use alternatives to the car when commuting to work.