For companies and the office buildings they occupy, the post-pandemic reality means that workforces now demand a hybrid working environment. Put another way, employees want to know whether their commute to the office is worth it. Expanding commuting and mobility options is becoming a key way to “earn the commute” of office workers.
This article explores how you can evaluate whether your office has earned employees’ commutes in a data-driven manner.
Background: The Increasing Importance of Multimodal Transportation in Real Estate Success
Since the COVID 19 pandemic, a hybrid working model has become the new normal in American businesses. Getting talent back into the office offers benefits that work-from-home can’t, such as:
- Improving collaboration among team members, and
- Offering employees opportunities for connection, promotion, and personal growth
However, with the worldwide experience of “work from home,” employees are now acutely sensitive to the loss of personal time as a result of their commute, which oftentimes makes commuting to the office a negative part of their in-office experience.
The result? More companies talk about bringing employees back into the office by “earning their commute” through things like curated events, innovative office design and more visible leadership. But that doesn’t take the pain out of the commute itself.
Improving the Office Commute: Make Mobility a Part of Real Estate, Not Apart from It
Making the commute a more convenient and productive part of an employee’s workday takes the pain out of time spent getting to and from the office and enhances the tenant’s experience from the front door of their home to their desk at work.
Assessing an office building’s mobility potential requires taking a hard look at the full range of mobility options, including:
- availability of public transport
- accessibility for environmentally friendly vehicles
- active transportation facilities, services, and promotions, and
- accessibility and green logistics
Why take such a hard look at your property? Simply put: competitive advantage.
In an age where Trophy and Class A office space with convenient access to transit are winning the tenant race, property owners and developers understand that they must seek innovative transportation amenities to successfully compete. These amenities make their assets more connected and cater to the evolving preferences of tenants and occupants who are demanding a better “Door to Desk” experience.
How Do You Improve the “Door to Desk” Experience for Tenants?
Verifiable, data-driven features drive competitive advantage, which is a key reason our firm uses the ModeScore system to drive transportation and mobility improvements in buildings.
ModeScore is a global certification system that enhances and recognizes sustainable multimodal transportation infrastructure and services of any office, residential, retail, hotel, or mixed-use building in any location.
ModeScore helps buildings become “cleaner, greener, and more convenient,” with the principle that the foundation of sustainability in real estate should be connectivity. As ModeScore states: “Well-connected buildings make real estate thrive.”
Here’s why ModeScore should be on your radar.
What Is ModeScore?
The ModeScore assessment standard looks beyond buildings and considers how they connect within cities using sustainable multimodal transportation infrastructure and services. ModeScore can assess the connectivity potential by looking at four sustainable transportation pillars.
- Public transportation (buses, trains, shuttles, etc.)
- Environmentally-Friendly Private Vehicles (carpools, vanpools, etc.)
- Active Transportation (bikes, scooters, walking, etc)
- Site-wide Mobility
ModeScore provides clear and actionable recommendations that prioritize connectivity solutions and can be easily integrated into every building’s transportation amenity package.
By continuously tracking and measuring these key topics, ModeScore empowers building owners and tenants to make informed decisions about sustainable transportation amenities, communications, and incentives that make it easier for employees to commute into the office.
Many green certifications tend to focus on new, centrally located buildings that make up a tiny fraction of our built environment. ModeScore helps properties in any location improve their sustainable transportation amenities and enhance tenant connectivity. At the same time, ModeScore certification aligns with other green ratings like GRESB, and provides an opportunity to achieve a significant percentage of points toward GRESB certification
- 11% of GRESB Points Allocated to “Green Building Certifications”
- ActiveScore + ModeScore are Individually “Partial -” Green Building Certifications
- They qualify for up to 30% of available Green Building Certification points (or up to 3.3% of total GRESB points)
- ActiveScore + ModeScore combined are “Partial +” Green Building Certifications
- They qualify for up to 60% of available Green Building Certification points (or up to 6.6% of total GRESB Points)
- They are equivalent to Fitwel, but more affordable
Why Consider ModeScore for Your Property?
Within the real estate market, well-connected buildings outperform disconnected ones. Buildings with tenant transportation amenities enhance real estate value by:
- Generating higher rents (15% to 25% compared to control group) and NOI
- Stabilizing cap rates
- Reducing stranded asset risk
- Increasing occupancy
- Bringing people back to the office and attracting new tenants/talent
By embodying best-in-class transportation amenities for tenants who prefer sustainable transportation modes, ModeScore fosters an exceptional user experience, promotes health, supports environmental goals, and ensures future-proof design.
The ModeScore assessment process is quick, streamlined, and scalable.
For a relatively low investment, buildings can earn a globally recognized certification that aligns with other green building certifications and enhances tenants’ experience getting to and from the property, in addition to their experience within it.
What Factors Determine a ModeScore Rating?
Four key elements are evaluated as part of a ModeScore Rating:
Transit
- What is the frequency, variety, and proximity of transit near the property?
- How is transit information communicated with tenants and its use incentivized?
Private Vehicles
- How many electric car, ADA, and/or EV charging parking spaces are on-site or locally accessible?
- How is unbundled parking, parking pricing, and reduced parking supply used to manage demand for private vehicle parking?
- Do tenants have access to a car-share vehicle on-site or locally accessible?
- How is sustainable private vehicle information communicated with tenants and is its use incentivized?
Active Transportation
- How is active transportation information communicated with tenants and is its use incentivized?
- Is there clear signage and wayfinding in place and prioritized for active transportation users?
- What is the proximity and quality of segregated bike and pedestrian routes as well as bikeshare and scootershare programs near the property?
- Does the property have an ActiveScore rating, and if so, what is the rating?
Site-Wide Mobility
- How are deliveries managed sustainably by encouraging e-vehicles and pedal vehicles (such as cargo e-bikes) as well as by minimizing the environmental impacts of automobile deliveries?
- How are surveys and reports used to measure the performance of the sustainable mobility offerings at the property?
- Is a dedicated transportation coordinator appointed to the development to help oversee the sustainable mobility offerings at the property?
What Are Your Next Steps?
If you are ready to elevate your property with ModeScore certification or simply want to learn more about how the program could bring value to your properties, contact Wells + Associates’ mobility management experts.
We are long-term practitioners of mobility management and transportation demand management (TDM) programs. We are experienced in developing multimodal transportation in the built environment and have helped dozens of properties across the United States enhance their buildings’ tenant transportation amenities and position their properties as leaders in “earning the commute” through convenient “door-to-desk solutions.”