What determines carpooling to workplaces in Belgium: location, organisation, or promotion?

Home to work travel remains the prime focus of mobility management policies, in which the promotion of carpooling is one of the main strategies. Besides governments, employers are key players in this strive for a more sustainable commute. However, commuting research tends to focus on individual commuters and their place of residence, rather than on workplaces and company-induced measures. Therefore, this paper takes the workplace as research unit to analyse the popularity of carpooling in Belgium. After an exploratory (spatial) data analysis, we incorporate three groups of factors in a multilevel regression model which predicts the share of carpooling at large workplaces: location (accessibility), organisation (activity sector), and promotion (carpool-oriented mobility management measures). Higher levels of carpooling are found at less accessible locations, and in the activity sectors construction, manufacturing and transport. This analysis gives insight in the determinants of carpooling, and may thus contribute to the development of sustainable transport policies.

► We model the share of carpooling in commuting at large workplaces in Belgium.
► Mobility management policies promote carpooling as a sustainable commuting alternative.
► Carpooling is more popular at workplaces with limited accessibility by rail.
► There are more carpooling employees in construction, manufacturing and transport.
► The promotion of carpooling must not result in more car-oriented development.