The Atlanta Regional Commission Board today approved a major update to the region’s Transportation Demand Management Plan, which aims to reduce single-occupancy driving by promoting alternative modes of transportation such as transit, carpooling, telecommuting, and walking and bicycling.

The plan expands the TDM program’s focus to address key mobility challenges faced by residents, including lack of car ownership, rising transportation expenses, limited transit options in many areas, language barriers, and lack of technology access.

The plan features several action steps to improve TDM in the Atlanta region. This includes:

• Maintain and optimize existing direct services by increasing education and outreach, partnering with employers, property managers, and schools, and strengthening tools to help people share rides and fill first-mile and last-mile gaps.

• Expand services in residential areas to reach underserved communities and better connect job seekers to economic opportunities.

• Deploy more non-digital and multilingual marketing to reach underserved populations.

• Expand commute options that fill transit gaps by focusing carpool and vanpool services to counties without transit and offering improved off-peak services when transit isn’t operating.

• Enhance services to essential workers who often don’t work traditional 9-5 shifts to help reduce commuting costs, ensure equitable access to job opportunities, and support business recruitment and retention efforts.

“This plan is a call to action for local governments, transit agencies, transit agencies, policy makers, and the business community to support more robust transportation demand management strategies,” said Roz Tucker, Managing Director of Mobility Services at ARC. “We need to evolve our TDM program to become even stronger and more innovative so we are able to accommodate our fast-growing population and better serve those who are most in need of alternative commute options.”

The plan update includes a strategy to identify additional funding sources needed to implement the action steps and refines the performance evaluation framework to align with the new regional goals. Currently, all federal funding for TDM in the Atlanta region is provided through the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program.

The plan update began in 2021, featured an extensive public engagement process involving seven employer service organizations, more than 40 stakeholder partners, and more than 4,000 members of the traveling public.