II.  The “Readily Available Standard” for Cash Reimbursements

4. Multi-Locational Employer Safe Harbor

   Multi-locational employers will be particularly reluctant to offer qualified mass transit programs since substantial systems modifications may be required based solely upon price changes made by numerous unrelated vendors. Therefore, we recommend that a second safe harbor be considered that would ease the administrative burden for all employers with employees in more than one location. Under this safe harbor, after applying the 1 percent safe harbor rule to each location where the program is offered, if the employer would not be required to distribute vouchers to a significant number of its employees who participate in the mass transit program, then no location would be required to distribute vouchers. This safe harbor refines the 1 percent safe harbor by allowing an employer with multiple business locations to provide cash reimbursements in all locations if a significant percentage of its workforce participates in the mass transit program in any area where the average administrative costs that would be incurred by the employer for vouchers are more than 1 percent of the average monthly value of the vouchers for the system.

   This new safe harbor would preserve the benefit for employees of multi-locational employers by protecting those programs from sudden price changes by mass transit vendors and changes in elections by employees. In addition, we believe that this would help to realign the qualified transportation regulation with Congress’s intent to provide an incentive to employees to use mass transit. Specifically, employers with multiple locations would want to raise awareness of and participation in their mass transit programs so that their programs would meet the "significant number of participants" standard.