Vanpool: Improved Monitoring Could Help Achieve Strategic Goals and Reduce Program Risk
Published June 11, 2024
The King County Commuter Van Services program (Vanpool) provides county-owned vans to carpool groups to reduce traffic congestion and the environmental impact of daily commutes. The Vanpool program is navigating a period of change and uncertainty in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and King County’s commitment to transition to a zero-emission fleet by 2035. Although King County Metro Transit’s Mobility Services (Mobility Services) has been developing creative and proactive approaches to rebuild ridership, it still faces structural and strategic barriers to achieving its equity and environmental goals. For example, King County Code requires the Vanpool program to recover most program costs which contributes to high fares, limiting the accessibility of the program to low-income populations. The program also faces substantial risk. It has an operating budget well under 1 percent of the overall King County budget, yet it represents over 2.5 percent of the County’s insurance claims payments, totaling $2.3 million in 2023. Mobility Services can better mitigate risk by tracking additional information about vehicle use and their potential misuse and strengthening its monitoring of policies and procedures.
Audit Highlights
King County Metro Transit Mobility Services (Mobility Services) is working to rebuild Vanpool program ridership equitably in a changing environment, but barriers to accessibility persist. Aside from a grant-funded pilot program, there is no reduced fare option available for low income or other priority populations, partly due to Metro Transit’s implementation of King County Code. Equity goals may also come into conflict with the Vanpool program’s electrification efforts due to uncertainty about how electrification will impact program costs, fares, and charging accessibility. Metro Transit does not have a process to weigh and respond to these trade-offs.
The Vanpool program’s risk management approach has some gaps in preventing unsafe driving and misuse. Although Mobility Services has structures in place to respond to incidents, it does not always use the information from these incidents in aggregate to proactively manage risk. Mobility Services does not have sufficient or timely information about vehicle usage and incidents, and policies and procedures for risk mitigation are not fully documented. The program’s personal use policy for vanpool vehicles is overly broad and inequitable, increasing operational costs for the program while only providing benefits to drivers who also own a personal vehicle. As new technology to monitor driver safety and vehicle operations becomes available, there are opportunities to use new sources of information to improve efficiency and reduce risk.
We make recommendations for Metro Transit to provide reduced fares for priority populations, track performance against equity goals, and account for the unintended consequences of its fleet electrification efforts. We also make recommendations to improve the information that Metro Transit collects to mitigate safety and financial risk.
The Vanpool program provides a unique transportation mode within Metro Transit’s system to reduce commute congestion and serve communities and regions with limited fixed-route transit options. The Vanpool program removes thousands of cars from the road, reducing the environmental impact of daily commutes. As of December 2023, the program had over 5,000 riders participating in 943 van groups. Fortynine percent of respondents to a 2023 survey said they would drive alone if they didn’t use a vanpool. In addition, the Vanpool program relies on volunteer drivers, which presents a financial and safety risk for the County and public that the program must manage.