GreenTrips, the Chattanooga Hamilton-County Regional Planning Agency’s traffic and air pollution-reduction program, is relaunching its trip logging, incentives and carpool matching services. Users can now access the service at GreenTripsCHA.org or via the GreenTrips iOS app.
GreenTrips provides incentives to encourage users to choose transportation that helps reduce traffic and air pollution. Walking, biking, carpooling and taking public transit as well as working from home or working a compressed work week are all ways to earn points with GreenTrips. Users can redeem their points for prizes including discounts and gift cards.
Using GreenTrips, which was originally launched in June 2013, more than 1,700 users avoided 2.2 million pounds of airborne pollution, travelled nearly 3.3 million miles sustainably, saved $570,866 on fuel (over 112,000 gallons of gasoline) and maintenance costs and burned nearly 19 million calories.
New and returning users will receive 1,000 bonus points.
The program received a new, three-year CMAQ grant earlier this year and used the time between the end of the first grant and the relaunch to evaluate the service provided by its current vendor. At the end of the process, the committee decided to secure the services of a different vendor –NuRide.
The new service provides additional functionality, such as an iOS app and trip syncing between popular services such as Strava, Lyft, MapMyWalk and MapMyRide. There are additional optional features as well including the ability to connect a Facebook account to find carpool matches or trip partners among a user’s existing Facebook friends.
The new site will also have expanded language options.