SINGAPORE - More facilities such as showers, lockers and drying stations for workers who use alternative modes of transport to get to work, such as cycling, could soon be a reality. This is thanks to a grant which has been extended to office building developers and owners.
Under the Travel Smart Grant, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) can fund up to 80 per cent of the cost of such facilities, with an upper limit of $80,000 per development.
The extension was announced by LTA on Friday (Sept 29) at the authority's Travel Smart Day 2017 event.
At the event at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre, more than 100 corporate participants gathered to engage in an early morning piloxing session to mark the event's official launch, which was attended by Dr Lam Pin Min, Senior Minister of State for Health and Transport.
The Travel Smart Grant aims to help organisations defray the cost of implementing or testing initiatives that encourage their workers to use alternative transport methods to get to work.
It is part of the LTA's Travel Smart initiative that seeks to reduce demand for peak-hour travel and encourage flexible travel arrangements.
The initiative was launched in 2012 and the grant component was launched in 2014.
The initiative includes two other aspects.
One is a Travel Smart Rewards scheme, which encourages participating commuters to shift their travel outside of the morning peak period and earn cash rewards in the process.
The other is a Travel Smart Consultancy Vouchers programme, which provides up to $30,000 for companies to engage approved consultants for up to a year to help them analyse employee travel patterns and come up with plans to manage workers' travel needs.
The Travel Smart initiative had 12 participating companies in its first year in 2012. But this number has grown to more than 200 companies today.
At Friday's Travel Smart Day event, LTA also presented awards to two companies with the highest number of users under the corporate tier of the Travel Smart rewards programme - the Ministry of Health Holdings and insurance company MSIG. This was based on employees' uptake of the scheme since June.
LTA said it has also seen more than 15,000 commuters shift from peak to off-peak travel daily. This is equivalent to 10 trainloads of passengers, it added.
Over the past five years, the Travel Smart initiative has granted and committed a total of close to $16.6 million in grants, rewards and consultancy vouchers.
