Apple boots its drives
San Francisco Business Times - by Kristen Bole Business Times Staff Writer
A complex problem demands an intricate solution. Who better to provide one than a software company?
Apple Computer's solution to the Peninsula pileup is a mix of the low-tech -- bicycle lockers, train shuttles and monthly commuter checks -- and the modern, with a web-page database of employees' cars, addresses and work schedules for carpooling.
Created in response to the Clean Air Act, the so-called Commute Alternatives Program has remained popular with the estimated 4,000 employees at Apple's Cupertino campus, even though the act died two years ago. The program tallied 1,100 alternative trips in May.
Carpooling is the most popular alternative. Second is the train, which logged 56 riders per day, followed by bikes, whose owners fill a waiting list for the 30 permanent bike lockers and vie for the other 100 that are first-come-first-serve.
Apple's alternative also pays cash at a time when employee benefits have hit the skids: $1 per day for each worker who doesn't drive alone, plus $30 commuter checks for train riders.
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