Today, large infrastructure works started in order to restore the fly-over of Vilvoorde to its former glory. Because the fly-over of Vilvoorde is part of the Brussels Ring (R0), which is an important part of the Belgian traffic infrastructure, traffic disruptions will occur during the entire summer of 2011. This makes the congestion for Brussels even worse, while it already is the most congested city of Europe, according to a recent TomTom study.

The cost of this congestion will be huge:

• The loss of working hours (opportunity costs)
• Waste of fuel
• Air pollution (carbon dioxide emissions)
• Increased stress for employees

Three alternatives exist:

The first option is to let your personnel use public transportation as much as possible. This could decrease problems, but not avoid them at all. Public transportation sometimes also faces this congestion in Brussels. The National Railway Company of Belgium has also severe punctuality issues. For companies is it also more interesting to provide employees with company cars, due to the tax advantage they offer to the firm.

A second option is to maximize flexible working hours. Instead of the flexible starting hours 8 a.m. to 9 a.m., make it possible to start between 6.30 a.m. and 10.30 a.m. and finish between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.

The third option is homeworking. A study of Interactive Intelligence shows that both employees and companies benefit of homeworking. No less than 81% of employees believe they do work harder, while at the same time they are happier and value the additional time they can now devote to their family. It’s a win-win situation. Technical evolutions, such as VPN networks and cloud computing solutions make homeworking a feasible alternative.

Categories : Tip of the week | Tags : Car Fleet, CO2 emission, Travel | 0 commentaire associé