 Good afternoon. It's Tuesday, it's noon, and it's time for Moving Hawaii Forward. I'm your host, Tim Apachella. In my first show, I quoted Washington State Transportation Secretary, Sid Morrison. Back in the late 1990s, he offered the following statement of wisdom that applies to traffic problems not only in Washington State or here in Hawaii, but very much applies to everywhere around the country. And he said, There is no silver bullet solution to the region's transportation woes. The best ammunition is instead silver buckshot. We need a scattered gun of solutions attacking problems with rail, bus, ferries, concrete and technology, and focusing on smart cards to smart roads from HOV lanes to hot lanes to telecommuting and rideshare and vans and bikes. VanPool is one of those critical silver buckshots. We need this in our arsenal to address the reduction of traffic, especially from MAVA and Kapolei area down to downtown. With me today to discuss this important program is Kanani Iaya, Account Manager of Enterprise Rideshare. Thank you so much for joining us today. I really much appreciate it. Well, thank you, Tim, for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm dying to hear all about this because it's a relatively new program where it's been re kind of formulated, so to speak. And I think that took place in August. Is that about right? Yes, reformulated, reintroduced. Right. And I'm very happy to share more information about Enterprise Rideshare because it is part of Enterprise's urban mobility strategy and it is part of transportation and a long-term commitment to sustainable transportation. And this is a partnership with the city, is it not? It is. We'll talk a little bit about that later. Just give me kind of the rundown and let us know about the program. Well, Enterprise Rideshare has more than 20 years of experience overseeing and operating vanpool programs across the United States and offering very, very flexible, unparalleled fleet service. And we're very thrilled to be able to partner with the city of Honolulu and do this to support the community of Oahu, support the community of commuters and the Oahu Vanpool incentive program. Okay. Well, let's talk about the mechanics. A lot of times people drive and they see one of these vanpools on the road and I'm sure the question is, how did they get that? How can I get one? So let's kind of go down the mechanics of how someone can actually get a vanpool. Absolutely. All they have to do is contact us at Enterprise Rideshare. My number is 808-543-1526 or you can email me and I think my email will be on the screen and shortly. Yeah. And just tell us that you are interested. We'd be more than happy to share the program with you. Specifically with regards to the vanpool program that the city is sponsoring, there should be a minimum of five passengers up to seven. Larger vans can accommodate up to 15 passengers. Right. So seven passengers not including the driver. There are eight passenger vans, right? They are actually minivans, comfortably seven passengers including the driver. Seven of driver, right. Okay. So you need a total of eight. Need a total of seven in a minivan. Yeah. Then we have 10, 12 and 15 passenger vans. Okay, got it. Good to know. So getting a driver is a hard part, right? Actually, there is a nice incentive to be a driver. Everyone is a participant. There are riders who choose not to be drivers. We encourage there be at least two, perhaps three or four, as many drivers as possible in the group, just so that the main driver primarily can take vacation or perhaps need a sick day. The vanpool will continue its route every day. But the incentive to be a driver is that driver will be able to use the vehicle for personal use after hours and on the weekends. Nice. Yes, very nice. Do you have any kind of, I remember back in the day, some drivers would take advantage of that and probably not in the best ways. Did you have any kind of mileage restriction on how much a driver could use the van? Yes, actually we have a fuel card benefit that ties into the program. And it is based on the actual round trip commute on a daily basis and then again on a monthly basis. And then we also cushion that with a couple of hundred miles for the personal usage. Anything over that, that driver for that week or that month would come out of pocket for additional fuel. Right, so if I'm stuck on H1 and I'm driving in from Ewa to town and I see one of these vans next to me and my thinking, why should I get that? Why should I be in one of those? And what are the benefits to me? Ewa, let's discuss maybe some of the benefits that someone might conjure up to say whether this is a good idea for me or a good fit for me. Absolutely. There are several benefits. So the nice thing is that we at Enterprise we provide the vehicle and we have a very wide selection in our fleet of vehicles to accommodate several different sizes of vanpool groups. So we provide the vehicle. We cover the costs for insurance and the insurance will cover everyone participating in the vanpool group. We also provide 24-7 emergency roadside service. We also cover the costs for the maintenance and any repairs that vehicle needs. Should the vehicle need to stay in the shop overnight or for several days and nights we provide a loaner at no additional costs. That's pretty good. There is one additional benefit that I'd like to mention and it's called Guaranteed Ride Home. You probably have been ill at work and had to leave work a little bit early to take care of yourself. Or your child ill at school and you get the call from the school that you need to pick them up. Guaranteed Ride Home is to answer those instances. So if you're part of a vanpool group and you need to break away from the vanpool group you would just give us a call and let us know what the situation is. We would contact our nearest enterprise branch. They will work up paperwork to get you a loaner. Come to your job site. Drop it off for you. Yes, drop off the vehicle to you. Have you signed for it but there's no additional charge. Give you the key and you're on your way. Is there a limit on how many times a year that could be utilized? Yes, the limit is three per person times a year and all we ask is that when you do return to work to bring the vehicle with you to work give us a call and we'll arrange for someone to come and pick it up. Door-to-door service. Very convenient. I like that. You know that is one of the major reasons why people decide not to ride share is the fact that they say I can't afford to be stranded at the event of my child or something at the house or some kind of emergency that I didn't anticipate happened. So by providing that incentive that really takes away a lot of people's reasons to say it won't work for me. So good for you. That's good to attach that to the program. Let's talk about personal benefits because I think there's a lot of personal benefits that prevent people from thinking why ride share is even a good idea. I'm so focused on driving and sitting in traffic for two hours or two and a half hours I don't even realize what's happening to me. In fact, I've had some people on the show here that actually did have a two and a half hour, three hour commute from Eva and they didn't realize how their life was being compromised. It's kind of like slowly boiling. You don't realize it. Yes. So, you know, let's talk about some of those personal benefits and I'm thinking number one is stress. Yes, absolutely. That is number one. So rather than driving and having to deal with perhaps anger management and stress you're relaxed in a very, very comfortable vehicle with some of your coworkers and friends or family. That's the number one benefit. If I'm the employer, I also want my employee to come to work stress-free. And I was just going there. You get to work. You're refreshed. You're not stressed. Increased productivity. Positive attitude. All of those are benefits on a personal level. Additional personal benefits are financial. So here you have a vehicle where all the costs including insurance, maintenance, repairs, 24-7 emergency roadside service, how many people have that are all taken care of and are all provided. So financial costs on a personal level. And when it comes to insurance a lot of people will call me a month or two later and tell me how much they're saving on their insurance once they say I'm only using my personal vehicle on the weekends. Right. So there's additional cost savings. They give you about 10 to 20% break? Yes, more like 20 to 25%. That's what I'm hearing from my customers. No, it's great. Yeah. And the additional costs may be parking expenses. You know how expensive parking spaces are here in Honolulu. Here you have a van pool and perhaps we have some companies that will provide a space at no additional cost to the employees who do van pool. And then if they don't we have five, six or seven people that will share in that cost. You know we're not going to go to commercial brake discs yet but when we do, when we get back I want to talk about what's in it for the employer to help out. Okay. Because that's a huge component of success for your program. Sure is. But we'll get to that later. Okay. What's the goal of Enterprise Rideshare? I know you probably have a set number of vans you want to see on the road and I'm sure you have some other ancillary goals. Let's talk about some of those. Well the primary goal for Enterprise but for the city and county of Honolulu is try to get as many people to share their commute instead of everyone being individually driving. Share their commute if they work together they may not even have to work together but work close by say on the same block but live in the same neighborhood perhaps and live in the same community and share the same work schedules. Definitely that is an opportunity to ride share to van pool. That's a huge benefit for the state, for the city is to reduce traffic congestion and while you're reducing traffic congestion you're reducing the horrible damaging CO2 emissions in our atmosphere as well. I went to your website and you guys advertise about 12,500 pounds per month. Per month. Per month. Per van. Per van. Yes. That's pretty good. It's awesome. Yeah that's a lot. I mean we don't have any pollution ordinances or laws at the moment but there are definitely in California and other states but why wait? I mean we live in paradise now let's keep it paradise. Yeah. Let's talk about well for me one of the reasons I would want to consider either getting into a car pool or a van pool would be I want to get into work faster. I want to use that HOV lane how much faster do you think I'm going to get from say Eva to town if I utilize the HOV lane? And is this comparing to driving alone? Of course. Oh definitely. You're probably getting to work about 25 minutes faster depending on exactly what your commute is. Right. It could be more. It could be 40 minutes. Yeah. Now this is kind of I'm taking a left turn off of the van pool program. Okay. One thing I've noticed that when HOV lanes become very popular and you still allow the two person car pool the average mile per hour to get to town from that HOV lane slows down because it's becoming more and more popular. Yes. Do you think there's a time and place that we're going to increase that to a three person or more? I think there is an opportunity if van pool does pick up but a lot more people do start van pooling and sharing their commute they may raise the limit from two to three like they lowered it to help. Right. So I think Because originally it was three Yes. Back in the day. Yes. It was three. So I think they will just to accommodate more people that are van pooling because that is the goal is to get as many people to share their commute get out of their individual cars and share their commute to and from work. Yeah. Okay. I don't know if you saw because you're here and I don't know you had time to look at the front page of the newspaper today but they were talking about the potholes and given all the potholes that we have that's really hard on on your vehicle. It is. On your personal vehicle. I mean it really does amount to hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year that we're paying for our own vehicle to endure the potholes of this fair city. Absolutely. If I'm in a van pool I don't have to worry about that do I? No. You don't have to worry about it. Like wearing it in my car is like Yes. You have to save the mileage number one and the wear and tear that you normally will accumulate because you're driving individually. So the wear and tear will be on our vans on our vehicles and you make a good point when you talk about the potholes because the more and more vehicles that use those highways and byways those that's what's causing the wear and tear of the streets that lack of asphalt political comment I'm sorry that's one of those things. So here you have a program and it is truly a win-win-win all the way around no matter which way you slice and dice it. Not only shares your personal cost and expenses for additional repairs on your vehicle new tires and rotating and everything else but it also saves the city and state repairs on the roads on the highways themselves by having less vehicles on the highway more people sharing their commute. Okay well that's one of the benefits because I think there's more to discuss and we're going to do that as soon as we get back from our commercial break here. So I'm Tim Apochella it's Moving Hawaii Forward and we'll be right back. Hello Ha how you doing there Lassies and Latties this is Angus McTach here on Think Tech Hawaii and my favorite show Hibachi Talk with my good old buddies Gordo the Teksara and Andrew the security guy please join us every Monday no it's Friday every Friday from 1 p.m. to 1.30 p.m. Think Tech Hawaii and you can also find us on YouTube Hibachi Talk Hello Ha I'm Jay Fidel host of Life After Statehood and I do this with a regular contributor Ray Tsuchiyama and we try to make sense of all that has happened in Hawaii all that is happening and all that should happen Ray what do you think of that show I feel delighted to be part of Life After Statehood since after 59 so many things happened to the state of Hawaii yet things could have gone in other directions and that's what I'm fascinated about that Hawaii has had a great history but could have an even greater future there you go I believe that I'm with you all the way Ray Tsuchiyama and me Jay Fidel we do it as much as we can on Life After Statehood come around and see what we have to say thanks Loha welcome back and we're here discussing the Enterprise Right Share Program and let's continue where we left off and that is benefits to to the employees is why they might consider getting into a van a van pool and the last item I wanted to talk about is maybe not direct financial incentive but kind of indirect financial incentive and that might pertain to IRS so tell me what you know about that because I'm sure most employees have that benefit sitting there the Right Share Program it does have a pretext benefit associated with it and we definitely bring that to everyone's attention whom we speak with because it is very important and it is an additional financial benefit to be had and people should know about it we also bring that to the attention of business owners whom we meet with and focus on introducing the Right Share Van Pool Program to assist them with any of their transportation needs for their employees and it's an additional employee benefit that does not cost an employer anything it's very, very easy to set up yes it adds another benefit to your employee package and the pretext benefit can be used also by the employer so there are savings for the employer to be had so when I was in your business I think the pretext benefit was $250 where are we at now $255? it the last I heard but I know there are changes coming the last I heard it is up to $130 oh but it is my facts next up on that but there is changes being made and there will be more to be had so I mean if you take $130 and times 12 that's not a bad little pretext benefit very nice if you sit in there for yes absolutely very important I want to talk about why employers should get involved in this to what benefit would an employer see to try to promote and get potentially their employees into a van pool so let's talk about some of that some of the things they might want to consider sure well you touched on it a little bit earlier when you talked about the stress and relieving and having a more productive day with a better positive attitude so right there those are two benefits I as an employer would appreciate absolutely there are additional benefits if you're an employer and you have minimum parking and you'd like that parking to be used by your customers who come and visit that freeze of parking spaces from your employees parking there so employers with very limited parking spaces is a huge benefit yeah well you know I'm going to get back to the stress point and that is you know now companies are very engaged in proactive health care yes rather than reactive health care they're trying to get their employees in exercise programs stress reduction programs like yoga and you know all these things well why don't we take the first number one thing that means in the health care part of things yes and the usage that health care has on an employer's usage yes so let's talk about also some program elements that an employer can do that try to help support bands either do you get them started or once they're started maybe some program elements like flex time they do offer not all employers though not all employers there are several different incentives that employers use to support the vanpool program and encourage their employees to participate and that is one of them another one is free parking or a discounted parking rate or a stall some of them don't even offer a stall but if you're vanpooling and you have six other people participating they will offer you a stall free of charge maybe a discounted rate I distinctly remember that by having front door vanpools or preferential parking people go wait a minute that's not fair and then they go well gee I don't have to walk a few blocks or maybe I can just get a better spot so that's I think that for whatever reason that's a real incentive for employees to actually stop and think yes and some of the employees especially for example construction or contracting companies they have their base yards but the job site has very little or no parking at all and you can see all the construction that is taking place here in downtown Kakaako or in Waikiki and there's very limited or no parking space at all so here is an opportunity to have them use these rideshare vans to shuttle their employees to and from their job sites that's a really good point because now I don't have to rent additional services or hire a driver necessarily so that's a really good point we have another company that has over 5,000 employees at one campus one location and their employees find off-campus parking and it could be a mile maybe two miles away from their actually workplace so they have our rideshare vans that actually work as shuttles to pick up these employees and bring them back to their main work site or the campus and then after their shift they jump in these rideshare vans and they return them back to their vehicles at the parking lot that they are parked at right do you folks go to the employment site and I forgot what the term was zip to lunch where you invite employees from a similar zip code and have maybe a similar start time invite them to a lunch and see if there's any user talk about that so one of the benefits that we offer employers who are very interested in our program is we do a mapping analysis and we ask the employer for just a list of the employer's streets and zip codes because we do respect the privacy act and that's all we need is streets and zip codes and then the shift their work schedules and so we have what is called mapping program available and we run those streets and zip codes through that program and it does a very nice mapping analysis and provides you with potential van pools coming out of every zip code of your employer base how successful has that been it's not always easy getting people together it's not always easy to get the information but more and more companies are providing it to us there is more and more of a need by employers to help their employees with transportation or to help them provide solutions for transportation services to get them to work and back transportation traffic problems as everyone should be invested in that everyone not just the employees but the employer should have some skin in the game too and I could say without a doubt that once that these employers realize hey I'm providing a transportation benefit for very low cost yet it's a benefit that's used almost daily and most employers don't realize that a lot of benefits employers offer they're not recognized or remembered by their employees but this is a daily reminder that I'm getting a benefit from my employer and that alone as an employer would be a motivation for me to be very much involved with trying to get some of these van pools Oh yes absolutely and it is an awesome benefit for your employees and it doesn't cost the employer anything that is so key it reduces their cost they could let the purse strings loose a little bit and offer employers of the world or at least in downtown open up the purse strings and let's sponsor a lunch you come down there and you form vans we'd love to do that yeah exactly we'd love to do that we'd love the employees to be stakeholders in this with us and with the city and county of Honolulu yeah that's a good point yes they also get a tax incentive they do because it was a payroll tax incentive yes and I don't remember at this point in my life how much they're getting but it's it's something yes I mean it's not costing them anything to have this program for their employees but in addition to that they're getting a savings as well okay so there's a benefit when you work with companies are you finding that the companies are willing to appoint an individual at that company for lack of a better term they're called an employee transportation coordinator a focal person who's going to you know entertain questions from their employees about either the van pool program or how to get matched into a car pool or you know what transit routes may be coming to a my work site are you finding that happening at all we're finding that happening with companies that are interested in the program or that have a need for the program absolutely they are providing a point of contact person for us to work with okay anything else you're seeing on the employer side that's encouraging that you think are you seeing for example flex time you would think okay that doesn't cost anything it just allows the employee who's in a car pool or a van to have that little bit of leeway in case it takes a little bit longer or something happened on the roadway to get to work what kind of policies are you seeing with flex time with an employer is it 10 minutes is it a 15 minute leeway is it a half hour it's usually about 15 minute grace period is what it is and I'd like to see more of that from employers and I'd love to see a lot more employers participating and encouraging their employees to participate in a program like this because like I said there are so many benefits to be had by everyone that you really can't put a price tag on it how many vans do you want to see on the road is this a two-year program a three-year program five-year is there any set date to this incentive partnership you have with the city well right now it's a two-year program and we're hoping that it will continue and that the program will have longevity and that's when you will definitely see the benefit not only for the city and county of Honolulu but you will see the benefit for the community in the next several years I think your website said um was it a how many was the goal I think your website said was it a hundred vans on the road in the next few years or was it more than that I can't remember actually we're trying to get a hundred vans on the road in the next year a little over a year okay that's aggressive yes because they're not easy to form they're not and it's new it's new it's people changing up their habits you know and that's not always easy take that and show them what the benefits are um that makes a big difference yeah well I think it's a great program and I wish um enterprise rideshare all the success in the world on this because the more vans on the road better for all of us yes so thank you for coming on the show we hope you come again well thank you so much thank you so much I appreciate it thank you for having me I'm Tim Apachele this is Moving Hawaii Forward and we'll see you two weeks from now Tuesday at noon thank you