Tax incentives and other employee and employer opportunities
Workplaces have different ways to promote sustainable mobility. The means can be financial as well as creating a mobility plan, improving staff rooms, and developing parking practices.
Tax incentives
There are also financial incentives available for increasing the sustainability of mobility. In 2021, offering a bicycle fringe benefit, travel tickets with better conditions, and the benefit of electric car charging were among others added to the incentive choices available to employers
Cycling has increased in popularity as an everyday exercise, free time hobby and form of travel. In commuting, bicycle benefits in particular have started to be of interest in the workplaces.
There are different ways to utilise the bicycle benefit.
Fringe benefit travel ticket for public transport
The fringe benefit travel ticket for public transport is a benefit offered to the employee by the employer for the use of public transportation. A fringe benefit travel ticket is tax free up to 3 400 euros a year. There are many methods of acquisition of a fringe benefit travel ticket, which enables finding a suitable solution for everyone. The employer can offer the benefit for example as a commute voucher or the tax deductible value can be directly deducted in the payroll calculation.
The ticket can be acquired directly from a local public transport provider or alternatively as a product supplied by the fringe benefit service provider. The benefit can be granted to a limited part of the personnel. A fringe benefit travel ticket can for example be offered as an alternative to parking, exercise and culture benefits. The employer can pay for the ticket fully or partly.
Mobility plan
A mobility plan examines the employees modes of transport in commute and errand travels and evokes people to think about their daily transport choices and options. The size and location of the workplace do not matter, and a plan can be created by workplaces of different sizes in different areas.
Space requirements for commute exercise
Changing room and shower facilities in part have an effect on how attractive of an option for example commute cycling is. Rakennustieto has published a RT-instruction card on the topic in 2020, which gives advice on how to build or update functional staff rooms.
- Instruction card RT 203140 Staff rooms (in Finnish, available for a fee)
- Introduction of the instruction card
All in all, there are a lot of material and websites available regarding commute cycling and sustainable commuting. For example:
Information on smart mobility has been compiled in the project MoveIT (2019-2021)