SJCOG’s vanpool service delivers millions of dollars for transit in San Joaquin County

Everyone living, working and traveling in San Joaquin County benefits from vanpools managed by dibs, the San Joaquin Council of Governments’ (SJCOG) Transportation Demand Management Program to encourage commuters to use carpooling, vanpooling, transit, biking and walking, and other smart travel options.
 
San Joaquin County residents make up among the state’s highest percentage of supercommuters, or workers who travel at least 90 minutes one way to work. While the national rate is 3 percent, nearly 11 percent of San Joaquin County workers are supercommuters and a growing number depend on the SJCOG vanpool program to get to and from work. The allure of high-paying employment in job centers in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond and more affordable housing in the Central Valley make the long commutes worth it for many.
 
Those SJCOG vanpools carry San Joaquin County workers to such locations as Tesla in Fremont and Stanford University in Santa Clara County, and Lodi commuters to the Defense Distribution San Joaquin in Tracy.
 
SJCOG has managed its vanpool program for more than three decades, but it has been in the past half-dozen years or so that demand has driven up the number of SJCOG vanpools – from 56 vanpools to 403 today. The program provides a monthly incentive of $600 per van to offset the lease cost of CalVans or Commute with Enterprise vans.
 
But benefits go beyond commuters. SJCOG vanpools mean traffic congestion eases for everyone and there are less greenhouse gases from fewer cars on the road and fewer cars stuck in gridlock traffic, which all mean cleaner air.
 
Not only does everyone benefit from lower vehicle emissions and cleaner air quality, the shared ride-to-work is making money for the San Joaquin region. The federal government considers vanpools to be a form of public transit. Every mile a vanpool operates is logged into a national database used to determine federal funding for bus and rail transit in San Joaquin County. SJCOG’s vanpool program ultimately brings in millions of dollars in federal money for bus and rail transit in San Joaquin County.
 
“The program has made a huge impact locally,” Stockton Mayor and SJCOG Board Chair Christina Fugazi said. “In the past six years, nearly $19 million was generated and returned to San Joaquin County to support transit service for the public and disadvantaged communities. So far, Stockton bus transit services have benefited from all the vanpool program federal funding that flowed back into Stockton because of local vanpoolers. SJCOG’s program costs a fraction of that to run. This is a monumental return on investment!”
 
Data on key vanpool metrics – vehicle revenue miles, vehicle revenue hours, passenger miles traveled, unlinked passenger trips, and operating expenses – are collected for the Federal Transit Administrations’ (FTA) National Transit Database (NTD) to formulate the funding. About 850 transit providers in urbanized areas (UZAs) nationwide report to NTD, which uses the data to distribute more than $5 billion in FTA funds to those transit agencies.

UZAs in San Joaquin County include Lodi; Manteca; Stockton (including Lathrop); and Tracy-Mountain House.
 
Reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is vital for cutting vehicle emissions and greenhouse gases for cleaner air. One way to do that is to get people out of their cars driving solo and into vanpools. Fewer cars on the road and lower VMT mean less traffic congestion and cleaner air. SJCOG vanpools reduced VMTs by 37.6 million in 2023-24 alone.
 
The success of SJCOG’s vanpool program has not gone unnoticed.
 
“This is another great program from SJCOG doing good work in San Joaquin County by moving people and helping to improve air quality by helping pull these people together for trips to shared locations,” Lathrop Mayor and SJCOG Boardmember Paul Akinjo said. “Partnerships with businesses such as Tesla in Lathrop to encourage employee vanpools are clearly making the difference needed.”
 
Praises for the program keep rolling in.
 
“This opportunity has allowed for family savings in fuel costs and knowing we are contributing to preserving this world of ours,” one vanpooler said. “This program builds a closer work-related culture among people who would not normally cross paths.”
 
SJCOG vanpools are convenient and build workplace comradery.
 
“The vanpool is great,” another said. “I have team members who are on the same shift (at Tesla) and we can all meet up at one place. We can relax and enjoy our ride to and from work. We get to leave at the end of shift and just have a good time. We drive 76 miles one way so it’s nice to have good team members who make the drive fun. … It’s nice to have other people who have the same mindset in the vanpool.”
 
Some have enjoyed those benefits for many years.
 
“I’ve been vanpooling for years and it’s the best way to get to work at Stanford University in the Bay Area,” said a third vanpooler. “We rotate drivers, we share the cost, we’ve enjoyed our adventures for 12 years. We keep the commute less stressful than it would be if I were driving alone every day. It also helps keep traffic congestion down because we’re commuting with each other.”
 
Beyond saving commuters money on fuel, maintenance, and wear and tear on personal vehicles, vanpooling:

• Saves the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality.
• Saves driving time by reducing traffic congestion.
• Reduces employee stress since passengers can read a book, listen to music or a podcast, or work on the ride.
• May provide an option to close transit gaps.
• Helps reduce parking demand and vanpools may receive preferred parking.
• Helps heighten employer reputation, especially for employers who provide vanpool incentives.
• May improve employee recruitment and retention.
• May reduce absenteeism and turnover since employees who commute together are generally on time.
• Supports corporate sustainability goals.
• Means being able to travel in High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV or carpool) lanes.

The vanpool program’s growth was not entirely expected. A spike in demand occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic when essential businesses were still open and needed essential workers. Employer-sponsored transportation was used to entice them and in many cases those vans are still on the road.
 
Ridership for other transit modes plummeted during the pandemic and still have not recovered to pre-shutdown levels. Some supporters of vanpools believe vanpool ridership nationwide is more likely to recover because of social and work benefits – vanpool riders know each other and are comfortable in the vans.
 
As the program grows, the future of SJCOG’s vanpool service show clear skies ahead, and a stream of investment in the San Joaquin County’s microtransit and bus transit system.