Nearly one in five employees signing up for tax-free commuter benefits switches from driving a car to commuting by mass transit to get to work, finds a study conducted by BusinessWeek Research Services (BWRS) and commissioned by TransitCenter, Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides tax-free transit benefits as a means to promote mass transit use. The study also found that 53 percent of employees whose companies don’t currently offer tax-free commuter benefits would participate in a program if it was offered.

Switching from driving to riding mass transit reduces CO2 emissions by 20 pounds per person per day – or more than 4,800 pounds per year, according to the American Public Transportation Association.

"While commuter benefits have often been seen as a ‘nice to have’ for encouraging mass transit, we increasingly see it as a ‘necessary to have’ if we want to see an immediate and long-lasting impact on CO2 levels," said Larry Filler, president and CEO of TransitCenter. "If every company offered commuter benefits, the positive impact on CO2 levels would be a major contribution by corporate America in the effort to preserve the environment and in supporting the needs of commuters."

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Source: Business Wire (www.businesswire.com)