Navigation – Plan du site

AccueilPublicationsFact Sheets2017Profiles of companies which use c...

2017
114

Profiles of companies which use company cars in the Brussels-Capital Region

Brussels Studies factsheet
Profils des entreprises utilisatrices de voitures de société en Région de Bruxelles-Capitale
De profielen van bedrijven die bedrijfswagens gebruiken in het Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest
Thomas Ermans
Traduction de Jane Corrigan
Cet article est une traduction de :
Profils des entreprises utilisatrices de voitures de société en Région de Bruxelles-Capitale [fr]
Autre(s) traduction(s) de cet article :
De profielen van bedrijven die bedrijfswagens gebruiken in het Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest [nl]

Résumés

Sur base des données des Plans de déplacements d’entreprise de la RBC (2014), nous avons mis en évidence trois profils d’entreprises utilisatrices de voitures de société. Ces dernières sont définies comme l’ensemble des entreprises avec au-moins 10 voitures de société pour 100 travailleurs, un seuil qui exclut la quasi-totalité des administrations publiques ainsi que les secteurs de la santé et de l’enseignement.
Au-delà de l’élaboration de profils particuliers, cette factsheet met en évidence le rapport de corrélation, d’association, entre la mise à disposition de voitures de société au bénéfice des travailleurs et d’autres caractéristiques. Spécifiquement, le recours aux voitures de société concourt, avec une mise à disposition généreuse de places de parking et une mauvaise accessibilité en transports en commun, à dessiner des profils de mobilité à l'échelle de l’entreprise globalement tournés vers l’usage du mode automobile sur les déplacements domicile-travail.

Haut de page

Texte intégral

Introduction

1The issue of company cars leads to intense political and social debates. The phenomenon of company cars varies greatly from one company to another. Beyond the definition of a company which uses company cars, this fact sheet underlines the variability of the profiles of these companies with the objective to clarify the debates and provide food for thought on a targeted mobility policy.

1. Very complete data on a selection of companies

  • 1 In 2004, BCR introduced the legal framework which requires certain companies (initially, all sites (...)
  • 2 The information on company cars will, however, be included in the federal diagnosis as of the 2017 (...)

2Data on company cars at company level are scarce in Belgium. Apart from the surveys conducted on the initiative of the Belspo PROMOCO project team in 2007 and 2008 [Cornelis et al, 2009], only the company travel plans (CTP) for the Brussels-Capital Region (BCR) provide data on the number of company vehicles (and in particular, company cars), the characteristics of companies (specific location, sector of activity, size, work organisation, etc.) and the travel practices of workers. The last available CTP sample was gathered throughout 2014 by Bruxelles Environnement.1 The following analysis is based on this. At federal level, the diagnosis of travel between home and work produces a similar schema for the entire Belgian territory, but until now has not gathered information on company vehicle fleets.2

3Apart from the fact that the CTP sample only concerns company sites located in BCR, it only targets companies with more than 100 workers and, among them, only sites with more than 100 workers. This leads to an under-representation of employed workers and self-employed workers. Furthermore, only workers who spend at least half of their working time on the site being considered are counted, which tends to reduce the significance of certain sectors of activity (construction, cleaning, etc.).

  • 3 Certain companies simply did not respond and certain responses could not be used, as they were too (...)

4In 2014, the workers in the companies concerned by the CTP obligation represented 43 % of employed workers in BCR. The useable sample included 497 sites for just over 263 000 workers, i.e. 38 % of employed workers in BCR [Bruxelles Environnement, 2016].3

2. Defining a company which uses company cars

5There are just over 30 000 company cars in the CTP 2014 sample, i.e. 11,5 vehicles for 100 workers or 19,2 vehicles for 100 workers if we consider companies which provide at least one company vehicle to their workers. These average values must not, however, conceal the significant variability within the sample, as 42,3 % of sites (39,4 % of workers) do not provide cars to their workers, whereas at the other extreme, only 3 % of sites provide at least 75 company cars for 100 workers.

6In the choice of a sub-sample of companies which use company cars, we feel that it is important to exclude the companies for which the number of company cars per worker is very low, and for which the use of company cars may not be considered as a structuring practice as regards the mobility of workers at company level. We propose to set the threshold at companies with at least 10 company cars for 100 workers.

7The resulting sub-sample includes 148 sites (29,8 % of the total sample and 51,6 % of companies with at least one company car), 74 734 workers (28,4 % of the total sample and 46,8 % of workers in companies with at least one company car) and 27 756 company cars, i.e. 90,5 % of the total number of company cars in the sample. This threshold allows us to preserve a significant diversity in the intensity of use of company cars, and to exclude the companies which use them only rarely. The result is that almost all public sector sites are not included in our sample.

Table 1. Company sites, workers and company cars according to the number of company cars for 100 workers in the CTP 2014 sample

Table 1. Company sites, workers and company cars according to the number of company cars for 100 workers in the CTP 2014 sample

3. Profiles of companies which use company cars

8In addition to the number of company cars for 100 workers, we have integrated different variables which characterise each of the sites, with the aim of producing a profile of companies which associate several dimensions. These variables are related to the characteristics specific to each company (sector of activity, size of the company), the spatial characteristics of each site (location, accessibility by public transport) and the workers (distance between home and work, place of residence), as well as the daily travel practices of the latter (method of travel from home to work).

  • 4 We have grouped the sites according to an ascending classification using the Ward method for the fo (...)

9Thanks to an ascending classification using the Ward method, we have divided the sample into three company profiles which group the sites with characteristics which are as similar as possible with respect to the different variables mentioned in the previous paragraph.4

Table 2. Sites, workers and company cars for each type of company and for companies which do not use company cars

Table 2. Sites, workers and company cars for each type of company and for companies which do not use company cars

10The first type includes 72 sites and close to 25 000 workers with a total of 13 427 company cars, i.e. 54,2 company cars for 100 workers. This high and significantly over-represented value with respect to the average, as well as the considerable number of parking spaces for 100 workers (71,0) and the significant modal share of cars among workers (79,1 % of them use cars, not including car sharing) paint the picture of a company with a very high rate of use of cars in general and of company cars in particular.

  • 5 The definition of the spatial division used in the framework of this analysis is presented in the a (...)
  • 6 The accessibility indicator used in this analysis is based on a construction between two indicators (...)

11While the average distance between home and the workplace (23,3 km) appears to be lower than that of the total sample, in particular due to the place of residence which is slightly over-represented in BCR and in the inner ring,5 the accessibility of sites by public transport (PT)6 is poor overall (poor for 81,6 % of workers, excellent for none). This aspect clearly contributes to a mobility profile which is focused on cars among companies of this type. Likewise, it is not surprising that most of the company cars for this type of company are found in the outer ring, with a very high concentration in the northeastern part, related to the presence of several business parks near the national airport.

12The vast majority of companies of this first type belong to the service company sector (62,5 %) and are smaller than average (344 workers per site and less than 10 % of workers employed at sites with more than 2 000 workers).

13The second type, led mainly by the banking and insurance sector (64,5 % of workers), concerns close to 40 000 workers at 41 sites. Unlike the first type, it includes very large companies (66,1 % of workers are employed in units with more than 2 000 workers) with a very central location in BCR. This results in particularly easy access by public transport (the accessibility of sites is excellent for 58,2 % of workers) to the benefit of workers who tend to live far from their workplace (32,4 km on average), in areas more specifically located in the outer ring or in the rest of Belgium (65,9 % of workers).

14In these conditions, the use of the train prevails over the other modes of transport (49,4 % of workers), despite the substantial proportion of car users (32,2 %). This mobility profile which is less marked by the use of the car is confirmed by an under-represented number of company cars for 100 workers (28,5) and parking spaces for 100 workers (30,9) with respect to the average.

15The third type, which includes a significantly lower number of sites (35) and workers (10 414) compared with the first two types, concerns smaller units (298 workers per site on average and no site with more than 2 000 workers) characterised by more local recruitment (38,2 % of workers live in BCR) and fairly good access to the workplace by public transport (the accessibility by public transport is good for 51,7 % of workers). The profile per sector of activity is similar to the average for companies which use company cars, and an overrepresentation is seen especially for sectors with minimal presence in the previous two types, i.e. the media (6,7 % of workers), the rest of the non-market sector (6,7 % of workers) and industry (4,7 % of workers).

16This last type has a limited number of company cars and parking spaces per worker (29,3 and 35,0 respectively for 100 workers) and a significant but slightly under-represented use of cars for travel between home and work (38,0 % of workers). While these characteristics are clearly similar to those of the second type, the third type stands out due to a specificity in the use of STIB (25,5 % of workers) which may be viewed in connection with more recruitment from Brussels on average.

17The companies which do not use company cars present a profile similar to the third type due to their high level of local recruitment (37,6 % of workers live in BCR) and a high level of use of public transport (58,3 % of workers use the train or the services of STIB, De Lijn or TEC). However, they differ clearly from companies which use company cars in general (and companies of the third type in particular) due to a structure based on sectors of activity which are largely dominated by public administrations (56,6 %), health (15,6 %) and education (6,6 %). The significance of federal administrations and federated entities among companies which do not use company cars explains why they are so accessible by public transport (accessibility by public transport is excellent for 43,1 % of workers) and are large on average (545 workers per site on average).

18The analysis carried out for this fact sheet has highlighted the fact that the intensity of use of company cars is associated and correlated with other factors in the framework of the elaboration of company profiles. Specifically, along with the provision of parking spaces and poor accessibility by public transport, the provision of company cars contributes to creating mobility profiles at company level which are mainly focused on the use of cars for travel between home and work.

Figure 1. Values and specificities of descriptive variables of the companies which use company cars according to type, and for all companies which do not use company cars

Figure 1. Values and specificities of descriptive variables of the companies which use company cars according to type, and for all companies which do not use company cars

Figure 2. Company cars located in the neighbourhood of the workplace according to the type of company which uses company cars and all companies which do not use company cars

Figure 2. Company cars located in the neighbourhood of the workplace according to the type of company which uses company cars and all companies which do not use company cars
Haut de page

Bibliographie

BRUXELLES ENVIRONNEMENT 2016. Les plans de déplacements d’entreprise en Région de Bruxelles-Capitale - Bilan de la situation en 2014. Brussels: Bruxelles Environnement, Bruxelles Mobilité.

CONSEIL CENTRAL DE L’ÉCONOMIE - CONSEIL NATIONAL DU TRAVAIL, 2017. Diagnostic fédéral des déplacements domicile-travail : amélioration du projet de questionnaire 2017 et recommandations générales, Avis, no CCE 2017-014 DEF CCR 10 CNT Avis 2.024, Brussels.

CORNELIS, E., CASTAIGNE, M., PAULY, X., DE WITTE, A. and RAMAEKERS, K., 2009. Professional mobility and company car ownership “Promoco”. Final Report. Research Programme Science for a Sustainable Development, Brussels: Belgian Science Policy.

ERMANS, T., LEBRUN, K. and BRANDELEER, C., forthcoming. Accessibilité en transports en commun des emplois bruxellois. In : ERMANS, T., BRANDELEER, C. and WAYENS, B. (dir.), Les déplacements domicile-travail et domicile-école en Région de Bruxelles-Capitale, Brussels: Cahiers de l’observatoire de la mobilité de la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale).

LEBRUN, K., HUBERT, M., DOBRUSZKES, F. and HUYNEN, P. 2012. L’offre de transport à Bruxelles. Brussels: Cahiers de l’observatoire de la mobilité de la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale.

Haut de page

Notes

1 In 2004, BCR introduced the legal framework which requires certain companies (initially, all sites with more than 200 workers and, since 2011, all sites with more than 100 workers) to carry out a travel plan every three years, which includes a company mobility diagnosis and a plan of action. The latter consists of a series of measures (some of which are mandatory) to implement in order to rationalise travel by private car and to encourage a modal transfer to more sustainable modes.

2 The information on company cars will, however, be included in the federal diagnosis as of the 2017 fiscal year [Conseil Central de l’Economie - Conseil National du Travail, 2017].

3 Certain companies simply did not respond and certain responses could not be used, as they were too incomplete.

4 We have grouped the sites according to an ascending classification using the Ward method for the following variables: number of cars for 100 workers, size of the company, proportion of workers according to distance between home and work, proportion of workers who live outside BCR, accessibility of site by public transport, and main modal shares (according to the distance) of workers for their travel between home and work.

5 The definition of the spatial division used in the framework of this analysis is presented in the article by Lebrun et al [2012: 7]. It divides the Belgian territory into four areas: the Brussels-Capital Region, the inner ring (whose outer limit corresponds to the area under study in the Iris Plan 1), the outer ring (whose outer limit corresponds to the area under study in the Iris Plan 2) and the rest of Belgium.

6 The accessibility indicator used in this analysis is based on a construction between two indicators of accessibility by public transport for statistical sectors in Brussels. The first one measures the accessibility by public transport for internal travel within BCR, whereas the second one measures the accessibility by public transport for travel entering BCR [Ermans et al, forthcoming]. For each site, the accessibility by public transport is the average value of these two indicators, weighted by the share of workers who live within and outside the Region respectively.

Haut de page

Table des illustrations

Titre Table 1. Company sites, workers and company cars according to the number of company cars for 100 workers in the CTP 2014 sample
URL http://journals.openedition.org/brussels/docannexe/image/1543/img-1.png
Fichier image/png, 56k
Titre Table 2. Sites, workers and company cars for each type of company and for companies which do not use company cars
URL http://journals.openedition.org/brussels/docannexe/image/1543/img-2.png
Fichier image/png, 47k
Titre Figure 1. Values and specificities of descriptive variables of the companies which use company cars according to type, and for all companies which do not use company cars
URL http://journals.openedition.org/brussels/docannexe/image/1543/img-3.png
Fichier image/png, 154k
Titre Figure 2. Company cars located in the neighbourhood of the workplace according to the type of company which uses company cars and all companies which do not use company cars
URL http://journals.openedition.org/brussels/docannexe/image/1543/img-4.png
Fichier image/png, 1005k
Haut de page

Pour citer cet article

Référence électronique

Thomas Ermans, « Profiles of companies which use company cars in the Brussels-Capital Region »Brussels Studies [En ligne], Fact Sheets, n° 114, mis en ligne le 10 juillet 2017, consulté le 28 mars 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/brussels/1543 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/brussels.1543

Haut de page

Auteur

Thomas Ermans

Thomas Ermans is a geographer with a complementary master’s degree in statistical data analysis. He is a researcher at Centre d’études sociologiques at Université Saint-Louis – Bruxelles, where he works on different subjects related to mobility for the Observatoire de la mobilité de la RBC. He is the co-author of the 6e Cahier de l’Observatoire de la mobilité entitled "Les déplacements domicile-travail et domicile-école en Région de Bruxelles-Capitale" (forthcoming).
thomas.ermans[at]usaintlouis.be

Articles du même auteur

Haut de page

Droits d’auteur

CC-BY-4.0

Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence CC BY 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

Haut de page
Rechercher dans OpenEdition Search

Vous allez être redirigé vers OpenEdition Search