What Commute Programs Does DVRPC Offer for Commuters and Employers?

Updated

DVRPC offers commute programs aimed at commuters, employers, and residents in the five-county southeastern Pennsylvania region, designed to help people find travel options that fit their work trip and to help employers support their employees' commutes. The agency's site presents these as a distinct program area alongside its transportation planning, environment, economic development, and community planning work. If you commute in or into that five-county area, or you manage employees who do, this is the program area to check first.

Who the programs are for

The site describes the commute offerings as serving three overlapping groups:

  • Commuters — people looking for travel options for their own trips to and from work.
  • Employers — organizations that want to help their employees find workable commute options.
  • Residents — people in the five-county southeastern Pennsylvania region more broadly.

The common thread is the work trip: the programs are framed around "travel options that work for you or your employees," not around general tourism or leisure travel.

What the programs cover

Based on the site's description, the commute program area is a gateway to travel-option information rather than a single fixed service. The page directs visitors to "View Programs" to see the current offerings. Because the specific program lineup can change, the reliable move is to open that programs page and read the current list rather than rely on a remembered menu.

Two practical implications follow from how the site frames this:

  1. The scope is regional, not national. The programs are tied to the five-county southeastern Pennsylvania region. If your commute falls outside that area, the offerings may not apply to you.
  2. The audience is both sides of the commute. Employers are treated as a first-class audience, not an afterthought, which means there is a path for a workplace to engage rather than only for an individual commuter.

How to use it

  1. Confirm you are in scope. Check that your home or workplace sits in the five-county southeastern Pennsylvania region the programs serve.
  2. Go to the commute program area. From the DVRPC homepage, follow the commute section and select "View Programs" to see the current list of travel options and employer offerings.
  3. Pick the path that matches you. Commuters and residents should look for individual travel-option guidance; employers should look for the employee-commute support offerings.
  4. Verify before you plan around it. Program details, eligibility, and any participation requirements are set by DVRPC and can change. Confirm current terms on the program page before committing a commute plan or a workplace program to them.

Common sticking points

  • Assuming a fixed catalog. The site points to a programs listing rather than enumerating every option on the homepage, so treat the listing as the source of truth.
  • Missing the employer angle. Employers sometimes read commute pages as consumer-only content. Here, employer participation is explicitly part of the offering.
  • Geography. The five-county southeastern Pennsylvania focus is the main filter; a commute that crosses outside it may not be covered.

Where commute programs sit in DVRPC's work

DVRPC is the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Greater Philadelphia. Its stated role is to build consensus for a shared regional vision, enable data-based and community-centered solutions, and help put plans into action. The commute programs are one expression of that: they translate regional transportation planning into options people and employers can actually use for the daily trip to work.

For context on the broader planning portfolio, the site groups work under transportation planning, environment, economic development, and community planning. Commute programs sit closest to the transportation side, but they connect to the agency's wider goals of improving mobility and creating healthy communities.

Related resources worth knowing about

If your interest in commuting grows into something larger — a workplace travel plan, a local government program, or a data question — DVRPC's site points to adjacent resources:

  • Funding & Assistance — DVRPC manages funding opportunities and provides technical assistance to local governments in the region.
  • Data & Tools — a Data Center with regional data on demographics, transportation, and land use, including datasets, interactive maps, and applications.
  • Featured products — reports, web maps, and applications published across transportation, economic development, environmental, and community planning.

These are separate from the commute programs themselves, but they are the natural next stops if a commute question turns into a planning or funding question.