In December of 2002, the California Urban Water Conservation Council
published a research report on "Free Riders in Ultra-Low Flow Toilet Programs." The
report outlined the findings of a study that examined four different toilet replacement
programs conducted by California water utility agencies.
"Free riders" are defined as program participants who, without the water agency's
ULFT program, would nonetheless still have replaced their toilets. Since water
agencies do not get the incremental conservation benefits from serving free riders, it
became important to try to identify the bounds of the free ridership phenomenon. The
California Urban Water Conservation Council undertook this study with the partial
support of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to try to put some perspective on the
problem.
The study was conducted using telephone surveys, canvassing both single and
multi-family households that had participated in one of the four ULFT replacement
programs. The results that were compiled were surprising: in these four different
programs, the rates varied tremendously - from 17% to a whopping 62%.
The reasons for the spread are the subject of this paper. It is clear that ULFT
program design is a driving factor in reducing free ridership. This paper explores the
different factors that led to the high and low free ridership rates, and offers specific
advice to water utilities designing conservation programs to help them minimize the
impact. Includes tables, figures.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 260 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 11 |
| Published : | 01/11/2004 |
