What is total mobility, and why is it more than commuting?
Employee mobility sounds like an HR topic, but in practice it is much broader. For many organisations, commuting is a structural cost item, a source of CO₂ emissions and a determining factor for accessibility and employee satisfaction. In the Netherlands there is an extra reality: employers with 100+ employees must report on work-related mobility through the WPM reporting obligation. The question is therefore not whether to address total mobility, but whether you approach this moment purely administratively or use it to make mobility genuinely measurable and more sustainable.
Total mobility covers employees' daily travel behaviour: commuting, business trips and the choices between car, public transport, bicycle and working from home. In carbon accounting frameworks, commuting explicitly falls under Scope 3: the GHG Protocol describes employee commuting as transport between home and work location, with hybrid working as an optional component. This means that even if you decarbonise the lease cars, commuting can still form a substantial part of your indirect footprint. And precisely there, little policy is usually in place.
How large is work-related mobility in the Netherlands?
Anyone wanting to make commuting more sustainable must first acknowledge its size. In 2023, around 25% of distance travelled in the Netherlands was attributed to commuting, while around 70% of total distance is covered by car. Travel behaviour is stabilising but is not returning to the pre-2019 situation by itself: the 2024 National Traveller Survey shows that commuting car kilometres rose slightly in 2024 versus 2023 (+1%), while public transport kilometres fell (-4%) and cycling distance declined slightly (-2%).
WPM: how do you move from reporting to steering?
The WPM requires organisations with 100+ employees to report on business travel and commuting. Important to follow: the legislation is likely to change. The parliamentary letter of 20 November 2025 expressed the intention to exempt SMEs, so that from January 2027 the obligation is expected to apply only to organisations with 250+ employees. Until then, 100+ remains the norm.
For policy, this is exactly the reason to look beyond mere compliance. A good mobility plan also delivers value if the reporting threshold changes later: insight, cost control and a substantiated route to CO₂ reduction.
Where do organisations get stuck?
Data
You cannot steer what you do not measure. Many organisations lack a reliable picture of travel patterns: distance, modality and variation. Yet precisely those data form the basis for prioritisation. RVO offers tools for data collection, including a worksheet with a survey format. The pitfall remains fragmented data: expense claims, fuel cards, lease administration, public transport allowances and home working arrangements often sit in different systems.
Behaviour
The car is often the default and commuting is persistent habitual behaviour. RIVM research shows that many people take the car even for short distances: in 2022, 44% of people living within 7.5 kilometres of work drove. Behavioural change requires a mix of measures: active encouragement, making car use less attractive and timing measures smartly, for example around a move or a new job.
Policy
Steering can unintentionally go the wrong way. The 2024 National Traveller Survey shows that employer schemes and allowances can correlate with shifts between car, public transport and bicycle. Financial logic therefore matters: what do you reward, what do you facilitate, what friction do you build in, and how does that relate to the tax framework?
What can you do concretely?
The maximum tax-free travel allowance in the Netherlands is 0.23 euros per kilometre, for own transport regardless of the mode. For public transport, the employer may also reimburse the actual costs tax-free.
Focus on the biggest opportunity groups
- Employees with short distances where a bicycle or e-bike is realistic
- Employees with public transport potential: good connections, park-and-ride or the bicycle-train combination
- Employees with hybrid work patterns where working from home and avoiding rush hour reduce pressure
Steer with a mix of measures
Effective measures usually form a portfolio, not a single button:
- Encourage cycling and e-bikes with facilities and clear, attractive allowances
- Make public transport attractive with season tickets or full cost reimbursement
- Use parking policy as a steering mechanism: scarcity, price incentives or priority for carpoolers
- Structure working from home where possible, with clear agreements and good IT facilities
- Carpooling, hubs or shared mobility where location and role allow
From policy to business case
For finance and procurement, the question is: what does it deliver, and how do we safeguard it? A practical KPI set for total mobility:
- Kilometres per modality, commuting and business travel separately
- CO₂ impact using consistent emission factors and definitions, enabling trend-based steering
- Costs per kilometre and per employee per month: allowances, parking and lease impact
- Travel time and punctuality, where possible
- Participation rate per measure: bicycle plan, public transport, carpooling
The advantage of this approach: you do not get stuck talking about sustainability, but build a steering cycle with measurable actions and evaluation.
How does Molthoff Fleetmanagement help with total mobility?
With the Mobility Scan, Molthoff Fleetmanagement maps the travel patterns of all your employees in a data-driven way, including scenario simulations for costs and CO₂. We then translate the outcomes into an up-to-date mobility policy with appropriate allowances and measures. For more depth, including international best practices, we are happy to send you the fleetcompetence whitepaper "Employee mobility & sustainable commuting".
Download the whitepaper
Mobility and sustainable commuting