TMCnews Featured Article

Telework is being promoted as an option, along with increased mass transit use, and carpooling, cycling and walking, to help Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada area residents to get around, and employers to obtain access to employees during the 2010 Winter Olympics. The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) is hoping that the changes will prove permanent as a green Olympics legacy.

To help make that happen, VANOC has launched a new web site (http://www.travelsmart2010.ca) to promote driving alternatives. It says its transportation plan requires reducing vehicle traffic by at least 30 per cent in downtown Vancouver, and on the Lions’ Gate and Second Narrows bridges and the Sea to Sky Highway that connects Vancouver with Whistler; the two key sites.

The competitions, ceremonies, and related events will take place Feb.12-28 and March 12-21 2010 whose greatly added transportation demand would result in, if unmitigated, extensive air-choking gridlock in an already-bustling and fast-growing region. The Globe and Mail newspaper reports that the Winter Olympics will add 30 per cent more trips, result 20-per-cent reduced road capacity through extensive road and lane closures, and 50-per-cent less metered parking.

While VANOC plan calls for additional transit: buses, ferries, commuter trains, and a temporary streetcar service on existing railroad tracks, it is telework: working from home and conferencing [audio/web/video] that is grabbing the attention. The Travelsmart 2010 site asks businesses to “Support Telecommuting to allow your staff to work from home”; the link leads to a section on telework hosted by TransLink, Metro Vancouver’s transportation authority.

The Globe and Mail reported that businesses are already taking heed.

“We are encouraging our people to telecommute, rather than coming in to work,” said Ken Werker, managing partner of executive search firm, Ray & Berndtson. “We are trying to schedule things with our clients so there will be no face-to-face meetings during the Games. We’ll work by video-conferencing, Skype (News - Alert), or the telephone. We've only got 30 employees, but it all helps.”

Telus, which is one of Canada’s largest communications carriers, and which the newspaper said has about 1,000 employees at its main office near key Olympics venues, is walking the [home] walk on telework. It offers telework including at-home contact center agent programs and conferencing solutions.

Investor relations vice-president John Wheeler told the newspaper that his employee team has already conducted a week-long trial of working from home. “It went quite well, and we learned a few lessons. It's one thing to have a plan in your bottom desk drawer. You need to practice it,” Wheeler said. “We don't see the Olympics as a disruption, at all.”

Telus spokesperson Shawn Hall said the company is encouraging its work force to telecommute or work from an alternate site away from the downtown core.

“We certainly have the technology. If we are able to take almost a thousand people out of the downtown for the Olympics, that's a real contribution,” said Hall. “As for myself, I'm planning to work at home, but come down a few times at night for the fun.”

SAP (News - Alert) Canada - its Vancouver operation within a stone's throw of the Games' opening and closing ceremonies at B.C. Place - is hoping as many as 90 per cent of its 1,100-strong staff will not drive to work while the Olympics are on.

“There are a lot of moving parts, but we are definitely trying,” said managing director Kirsten Sutton.

She echoed VANOC's wish that changing commuter habits during the several weeks of the Olympics may lead to more permanent, non-driving habits.

“There's no value in grumbling. This is a-once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a 'green' legacy. It can be a catalyst for change,” said Sutton.

The Telework Coalition (TelCoa), a telework educational and advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. with active Canadian members welcomes the VANOC push for telework and is pleased with the business response.

It believes that Vancouver can and should encourage business interactions on the congestion-free, green, safe, and disaster-resilient ‘IT Highway’ rather than doggedly rely on yesterday’s transportation ‘solutions’ i.e. more highways and expensive mass transit lines. A shift in thinking and action it says that would free up air, road, and rail networks for visitors, freight, and emergency services, rather than unnecessary in-person interactions.

Businesses using the IT Highway for Work@Home employment and work collaboration not only reduces harmful emissions but has a legacy benefit of providing greater job opportunities at the home-office level, reports TelCoa.

At the same time implementing such strategies would safeguard Canadians from pandemics and other harmful events. Metro Vancouver is on the Pacific Rim’s deadly “Ring of Fire” which is caused by colliding and subducting tectonic plates, making it vulnerable to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions (there are several dormant--not extinct—volcanoes nearby), landslides, and tsunamis.

“Vancouver, British Columbia, and Canada has the opportunity - with the puck on home ice - to make the 2010 Winter Games not only more enjoyable for visitors from around the world, but also to make a lasting positive step forward, “said TelCoa senior vice president Jack Heacock. “One that will be a winner for economic development, energy conservation, and environmental improvements through Work@Home initiatives to reduce ‘normal’ business related commutes from homes to centralized offices.”