Did you know that transportation accounts for almost two-thirds of Hawai’i’s fossil fuel use and is one of the highest contributors to the state’s greenhouse gas emissions? When it comes to ground transportation, nearly 70% of Hawaiʻi’s commuters currently drive alone. Switching to sustainable modes of transportation can collectively improve air quality, alleviate traffic congestion, improve the health of our communities, and help combat climate change.
You can be a part of the solution by joining the 2023 Hawaiʻi Commute Challenge: Go Multimodal! This statewide event, happening throughout August 2023, will challenge you to get out of your car and experience the variety of transportation options that Hawaiʻi has to offer. Walk, bike, bus, carpool, or utilize public transportation for any trip — whether to school, the grocery store, the beach, or to work — to earn points, complete challenges, and compete for fun prizes!
Gear up, the Commute Challenge starts August 1st! The Challenge is open to individuals, families, and businesses across the state. Sign up today for FREE by clicking the button below.
Here’s what you can expect from the Commute Challenge:
1．Friendly Competition: Participate as an individual or as part of a team! Your family or workplace can form teams of up to 6 members to compete against each other, or with other businesses and community organizations throughout the month. This will be a great way to build teamwork, and showcase your organization’s commitment to sustainability.
2．Easy Tracking: Through our dedicated online platform, you can easily log your trips, track your progress, climb the leaderboard, and compete for exciting prizes!
3．Engaging Challenges: Each week will highlight a different mode of multimodal transportation. Earn points for taking any mode for any trip, but earn bonus points for taking the featured mode of transportation for that week.
4． Climate Positive Impacts: By choosing multimodal transportation options, not only will you be saving on parking, gas, and other costs associated with driving, you’ll also be reducing traffic congestion on our roads and contributing to a healthier planet!
2023 COMMUTE CHALLENGE: GO MULTIMODAL
EXPERIENCE THE BENEFITS OF A SMARTER COMMUTE
The Hawaii Commute Challenge: Go Multimodal is a month-long, statewide behavior change initiative accessible and free to all Hawaii residents. Through the gamified RideAmigos platform, participants will be encouraged to explore alternative modes of transportation such as walking, biking, and public transit throughout the month of August 2023. Tackle new challenges each week, climb the leaderboard, and compete for exciting prizes. Join a team with your family, friends, or co-workers for some friendly competition, or join as an individual and challenge yourself to explore new modes of sustainable transportation. This is your chance to showcase your commitment to sustainable commuting and inspire others to follow suit! This event is powered by Blue Planet Foundation, in partnership with Oahu MPO
Users of Hawaii Commute Challenge: Go Multimodal will enjoy the following benefits:
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- Match your Trip with Others (carpool and more): Save time, money and reduce your impact by finding fellow residents and employees taking similar trips to match a trip with. Simply set your origin and destination for a regular or one-time trip. Hawaii Commute Challenge: Go Multimodal will match the user with others who have a similar travel plan. Users can search and view potential trip matches that are based upon a specific radius from the origin, destination and along the route. Once an original search has been entered, users are able to easily modify their search, save it for later, or go back and review their recent searches. Users should save and share trips as “favorites” so others can match with them.
- Explore your Options: Hawaii Commute Challenge: Go Multimodal will provide a range of travel options for a user’s trip and the impacts associated with each choice. This will help the user to make an informed decision about their trip.
- Track your Impact: Users may track their trip choices to see the impact on their costs and local environment, receive rewards, and compete with fellow residents and employees in your area. By tracking travel choices in a diary, users will receive digital badges that can be shared on social media for actions such as “first alternative trip logged” or “first bicycle trip.” Top performers for each travel mode will also be displayed on a digital leaderboard. Tracking trips may also enter a user in a contest or campaign.
| Join the Challenge! |
Joining as a team? Register individually first, and then have one of your team members fill out this form to get your team created.
What is a Bikepool?
A bikepool is an arrangement between two or more commuters to share the bicycle ride to work or school. Commonly, the most experienced rider in the group will act as the leader and will help newer riders find the safest route to their destination and ride along for the shared portions of their trip. When you’re posting a Bikepool, make sure you note whether you are a new bike-commuter or an experienced rider so that you can match up with others easier.
How do I start a Carpool or Bikepool?
Use Hawaii Commute Challenge: Go Multimodal to help find a match. If at first you don’t find a match, save, save, save. Be sure to save your commute information so other people can find you. Remember, someone has to be the first to save their information. To save a commute, click on the “Post Your Own Carpool” button above the column displaying potential matches. Keep in mind that you can click on the star next to your commute description to save the information. Make sure you select “Everyone” from the dropdown box asking who you want to share the trip with. If you put in a specific address, the details will be hidden (so no one can see your home address!). If you want, you can also drag and drop the A or B points to an intersection near you.
Once you have found a match, reach out! When you message a carpool or bikepool owner, they’ll be able to email you back directly (using the email associated with your Hawaii Commute Challenge: Go Multimodal account). And once you have made contact, we recommend setting a preliminary meeting. Go for coffee or lunch with your match to make sure it’s a good fit. If it feels like it might work, give it a try. Test your ride a few times to see how it will work out; once you and your carpool partners are certain that it will work out, make a schedule. Schedule driver days/weeks/months and stick to it. And then make a back-up plan. Life is hectic, so be sure to have a back-up plan in place in case of emergencies, vacations, illness, etc. Next, but not least, determine the costs. If driving time isn’t split, figure out the costs and set up a payment schedule. Finally, set the ground rules. Deciding things like what radio station to listen to, whether food and drinks are okay and if smoking is allowed, for example, will save possible tension later and make the commute all the more enjoyable.
In contemplating a carpool, keep in mind that respondents to our carpool questionnaire overwhelmingly cited the positive social aspects of their carpool for explaining why they continue to commute by carpool. Yes, carpooling will save you money, but it also builds strong social bonds, which is a benefit you may not have considered.
The 2023 Hawaiʻi Commute Challenge: Go Multimodal is brought to you by Blue Planet Foundation, in partnership with Oahʻu MPO. Mahalo to our generous sponsors for making this event possible.