I feature an interesting website, blog, Twitter feed, Facebook page or other online destination related to Waterloo Region on CKWR with Randolph J. Johnston called #WRawesome Online, Mondays at about 12:30. Here is the Midday with RJ’s Facebook page.
I hope by doing so that I’ll help people find places online that help them to connect to their community-online and in the real world. By doing so, I hope to help people find online places that they might not find otherwise and make our community a better place to live.
For folks looking for communications advice, you can get tips from each selection featured. I’ll highlight at least one example in my weekly post.
This is Commuter Challenge Week
This week, June 3 - 9, is Commuter Challenge week where people living in communities across Canada are encouraged to try out and hopefully adopt alternative transportation options to driving solo. Check it out and participate!
What I would like to highlight to mark the week is a Region of Waterloo initiative called Travelwise.
What is TravelWise?
TravelWise is a Transportation Management Association (TMA), which provides an assortment of tools and services, aimed at reducing the number of people driving alone to work. The Region of Waterloo is partnering with employers across the region to establish a foundation for the TravelWise program.
TravelWise works with organizations to provide innovative strategies that encourage employess to use active and sustainable transportation. Walking, cycling, taking transit or carpooling to work helps to ease parking concerns, relieve traffic congestion, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote healthy lifestyles and improve quality of life.
I especially like these three aspects of Travelwise:
- Ridematching for Carpoolers
- Grand River Transit (GRT) Corporate Pass - Employees of TravelWise organizations gain access to discounted transit passes
- Emergency Ride Home - A sort of insurance policy in case you are at work and need a ride due to an emergency
The #WRawesome Online part of Travelwise
I really like how easy Travelwise makes it for people to find and arrange carpools. Its commuting website allows people to create profiles that help them to identify whose travel needs match their own so that they use fewer cars.
Anyone interested in carpooling can join and is encouraged to do so. I expect that the site is used mostly by staff of the member organizations but that is ok since it helps build the critical mass of users necessary to make the program successful. As more companies and other organizations join, each user’s carpool options will increase and more individuals will join.
The site also allows participants to log how they got to work ex. carpool, cycling, walking, transit. By doing so, the site not only encourages carpooling but it reinforces and promotes the wide range of options people have available to get around.
As we move forward and gas and parking become more expensive, more of us will be choosing to use a mix of transportation options to get to our destinations. Travelwise and its communing website are helping people to make this shift.
Room for improvement
While I applaud Travelwise and believe its carpool/commuting tool is awesome, I have some suggestions for improving its online presence.
- Have a single source of information: Currently, the high level Travelwise information is on the Region’s website, the corporate public transit information is on another website and the carpool tool is on another. Somehow this information needs to be more integrated.
- Have a single, intuitive navigation tool: While there are links back and forth, they are not as obvious or intuitive as they should be. For example, you need to be familiar with the pieces from the inside or be inquisitive to knit them together. Some kind of common navigation tool would help users especially individuals and companies not already involved to get up to speed and using the tools and resources.
