TDM Thought Leadership

Our Mobility Partnerships – the Allston-Brighton TMA and Allston Brighton TMA – use a data-driven approach to inform our strategies and build our commuter services and programming to best meet your transportation and sustainability goals. As outside experts on Transportation Demand Management (TDM), our data tools visualize your unique mobility patterns and uncover the distinct areas of opportunity within your organization. We overlay that information with the MBTA and Bluebikes systems, design targeted interventions for your distinct user-groups, and make specific cost-projections for each. Our goal is to help you best leverage your resources to foster robust Return to the Office (RTO) adoption while reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and roadway congestion. Explore our TDM Data Tools below to learn more about what you have access to as an A Better City Mobility Partner.

Zip Code Analysis Tool

Our custom-built Zip Code Analysis Tool visualizes the geographic distribution of your workforce overlaid with more than a dozen transportation datasets to create a robust mobility profile for your organization. From a simple list of five-digit ZIP codes—one for each person associated with your organization—we conduct a completely anonymous summary of your workforce relative to Greater Boston’s mobility networks. Our tool emphasizes proximity to the MBTA Commuter Rail and Subway service, Bluebikes station, and the growing network of bike paths and cycle tracks in the region. For each transportation feature, we estimate the catchment area of service according to standards provided by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). By coupling this information with our dynamic cost calculators, we provide recommendations for mobility benefit policy and program adjustments that meet your organization’s goals and create a cost-conscious roadmap for the future.

We know that people highly value choice and flexibility in their mobility options and this tool helps identify where you can enhance your support to make commuting as flexible as possible for your people. To support RTO initiatives and help commuters avoid Boston’s horrendous roadway congestion (Boston ranked 4th worst in the nation on the INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard), it is important to know where people are coming from, to know which transportation options are best suited to them, and what the associated costs are. This analysis provides a robust foundation on which to build a comprehensive mobility benefit program that can be tracked and tweaked over time, for maximum impact. 

MBTA FARE Calculator

At a Better City and our TMAs, we build tools that help people "do the math" related to their mobility choices. Our original MBTA Break-Even Calculator, launched in 2021, showed how many round trips a week it took to justify a monthly pass, helping commuters and employee benefit teams navigate the shift to hybrid work.

For Individuals Enter your route, how many one-way trips you take a week, and your fare zone or Commuter Rail station (just start typing your station), along with whatever your employer contributes. The tool also accounts for Reduced Fare eligibility and the cost of parking at your station, if either applies to you.

For Employers Switch to "I'm an Employer" to compute what it would cost to subsidize MBTA passes for your workforce, covering both Subway & Bus and Commuter Rail. Simply select your pass type, enter the zone (or zones) you're subsidizing and how many employees are in each, and the portion of the fare your organization would contribute. The tool then provides the cost per pass and the total monthly cost to cover your team, bringing budgetary clarity to the HR benefits process. We recommend using this tool to understand the ramifications of adjusting existing benefits or to justify the cost to launch a new program.

Questions or feedback? Email tma@abettercity.org.

BlueBikes Corporate Membership Calculator

Greater Boston has one of the longest-running bikeshare networks in the country. Bluebikes, launched in 2011, now spans 13 communities with 400+ stations and thousands of bikes, including a growing electric fleet, offering a flexible option for short trips across Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Somerville, and beyond.

Our analysis team has found that 71% of MBTA Rapid Transit stations have at least one Bluebikes station within 200 meters, giving people strong first-mile and last-mile options that extend the range of sustainable, multi-modal trips.

Annual members ride free for the first 45 minutes of every trip, with additional minutes billed at 33 cents each. Through the Corporate Membership Program, employers can subsidize memberships at two levels, Gold and Silver.

Our Bluebikes calculator helps you quickly assess the cost of starting or growing a corporate membership for your team. For context, Gold-level coverage costs employers just 28 cents per employee, per day. Explore the Gold and Silver tiers below and see how far a membership can go for your commuters.

GoMassCommute Analytics

GoMassCommute is our online platform to administer mobility benefits and programs for your people. Each of our Partners has a unique network where their people can sign up for free to access any of our Commuter Programs, log the trips they have taken, access incentives and promotions, participate in raffles, and more. 

As employees track their MBTA, bicycle, walking, driving, or telecommute trips each day in the trip logger, this trip data becomes available in the network management dashboard in GoMassCommute. Key datapoints include mode of each trip, distance traveled, time of travel, estimated GHG emissions saved (as compared to driving), and more. 

By increasing your workforce’s usage of GoMassCommute, you can uncover hidden trends and unique insights on what kinds of transportation options are most popular and impactful, which helps with resource allocation decisions.