‘It’s reassuring to know a vehicle is available in emergencies. I’ve had to use it about six times.’ --Curt Snyder, computer analyst in Irvine : Return Guarantee Sweetens Car Pooling

Computer analyst Curt Snyder was at his job at Allergan Pharmaceuticals in Irvine one day this year when he came down with the flu and needed to go home--no easy task, since he had van-pooled from Corona and his colleagues weren’t scheduled to get off work for several hours.

“I just picked up the phone and called Irma,” Snyder recalls.

Irma is Irma Acuna, Allergan’s ride-sharing coordinator, who gave Snyder the keys to a company car, which he returned the next day.

“It’s reassuring to know a vehicle is available in emergencies,” Snyder said. “I’ve had to use it about six times.”

This the latest twist in car-pool incentives--the “Guaranteed Return Trip.” It means that you can still get home if you finish work late and miss your car pool, or your son’s school calls to report he’s sick and you need to go get him.

Chevron Oil Co.’s La Habra research facility, UCLA and Warner Center in Woodland Hills also have guaranteed return trip programs. And the South Coast Metro Transportation Management Assn., which includes employers in the South Coast Plaza area, has obtained a $60,000 federal grant to study how return trip guarantees might increase ride sharing among workers. Several cities, including Santa Ana and Anaheim, have set up return-trip service for ride-sharing employees, or plan to set it up.

Although Allergan has offered such services to its employees for 10 years, guaranteed return trip programs are spreading mostly as the result of anti-smog regulations adopted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Companies required to submit plans to the AQMD for reducing “solo” commuting are trying return trip programs as part of a grab bag of incentives designed to lure reluctant workers into buses, van pools and car pools. Other perks include preferred parking, subsidized bus tickets, vacation and pay bonuses.

But more than other incentives, return trip programs address the No. 1 reason people say they can’t or won’t car pool--the fear of not being able to leave work when they need to.

“It’s very helpful because it takes care of the excuse that many women have, that they have a children and if they get ill at school they need to be able to go quickly,” says Allergan’s Acuna. “Some of them are ride sharing only because they know they could use a company car if they needed to.”

One Allergan ride-sharer used a company car to leave when her daughter went into labor; another left when her son was injured in a playground accident at school.

Says AQMD spokeswoman Claudia Keith: “There’s no way to tell yet how many companies are including this in their ride-sharing plans, but it’s becoming more popular. For some of the larger firms it’s relatively easy to do--It’s something they’re taking a look at.”

Chevron’s Art Tybor agrees that Guaranteed Return Trip programs persuade some people to car pool who otherwise would not.

At Allergan, UCLA and at Warner Center, workers are even promised a company-paid taxi trip if vehicles are unavailable. Warner’s Christopher Park, however, says his organization contracts with Avis, the car rental agency, too.

Since June, when the Warner Center program began, only seven people have had to use the Guaranteed Return Trip program. “That’s kind of good news,” says Park. “It doesn’t cost us a lot.”

At firms such as Allergan, where company fleet cars are available, the costs are minimal, according to Acuna. Although the firm employs about 1,250 workers, she says, people rarely use the Return Trip program, despite the widespread fear of being left stranded. Most requests can be handled with use of a single company car that costs $300 a month, plus gas and maintenance. The firm’s total annual ride-sharing program budget is $104,000.

Meanwhile, UCLA’s Commuter Assistance-Ridesharing Department has van pools ferrying people in from as far away as Laguna Beach. In the evening, late car-poolers can use three vehicles rented from the UC fleet on campus at the rate of 13 cents per mile, and there is a 15-passenger van dubbed “the night rider” which leaves the campus late in order to catch workaholics and stragglers.

Jennifer Stusse, UCLA’s commuter operations manager, doesn’t need much persuading that Return Trip programs work. “One day I didn’t get out there in time and my van pool left without me,” she says.

But the guaranteed return-trip concept is not introduced easily in every business. For example, Pacific Bell has reduced its vehicle fleet recently, so the firm has not made a “blanket statement” to employees that they will be “covered” if they miss their car pools for some reason.

“It’s open-ended, department-by-department,” says one Pacific Bell official. “If someone came to me, I’d probably drive them home myself.”

Steelcase Inc., in Tustin, has a sales van and a company car available to ride-sharing employees, but in a pinch company officials also drive workers home on their own.

Allergan’s Acuna is already used to that.

She’s a driver for one of the company’s van pools.