Here in Atlanta, 1.6 million people commute to work every day, and nearly 50 percent of those folks have commutes that take more than 30 minutes.

At Georgia Power and Southern Company, we have a program called SmartRide that promotes alternative commuting options and flexible work schedules. It's a great way for our employees to cut their driving expenses and time spent in traffic while improving the quality of our environment.

Georgia Telework Week is this week (Sept. 12-16), and telecommuting is one of the key aspects of our SmartRide program. Altogether, we have more than 800 employees who telework in one form or another. Some do it full-time, others do it part-time, and we have employees whose jobs are more suited for teleworking occasionally. It's a decision that involves each employee and his or her manager or supervisor.

In addition to telecommuting, SmartRide encourages employees to use alternative transportation. The company provides subsidies for employees who carpool, vanpool or use public transportation. Not only that:

• We provide a corporate shuttle between our two downtown Atlanta locations and the closest transit station. The shuttle runs continuously every workday between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m.
• We make fuel-efficient loaner vehicles available for SmartRiders to use during the day for business and personal reasons.
• We provide employees a guaranteed ride home in emergency or unscheduled overtime situations.

Our SmartRide program also asks employees to consider whether a compressed schedule might work for them (for example, working four 10-hour days each week) or whether they can stagger their work hours so they're not commuting downtown during peak times.

The driving force behind SmartRide is improving the quality of the air we breathe. That’s why our company has joined many others around Atlanta in support of The Clean Air Campaign. We’re encouraging employee participation in SmartRide, we're tightening power plant emissions, and we’re increasing our fleet of alternative-fuel vehicles.

Already, our employees in the SmartRide program avoid driving 1.3 million miles each month, which equates to more than 62 tons of emissions not being released into the atmosphere every year.

I could go on and on about the environmental benefits of SmartRide. But think about how it would be less stressful to eliminate all, most or some of the time you spend behind the wheel.

Think about how much money you could save on gas and wear and tear on your car if you weren't always driving solo to work.

Think about how productive you could be working from home and how much easier it would be to balance your work and personal time if you could negotiate a telework schedule with your supervisor.

We think SmartRide is a pretty smart choice.

Kirby Stough is manager of facilities planning and projects at Georgia Power.

During Georgia Telework Week, watch this space for other guest blog posts from Clean Air Campaign employer partners and commuters who appreciate that sometimes the best commute is the one we don't have to make.