Employers can institute a wide variety of alternative work schedules in order to reduce or redistribute commute trips and/or to make it easier for employees to take advantage of HOV commuting opportunities. Alternative work schedules take three forms as follows. 1) Compressed work schedules allow an employee to stay home from work on one day each week or one day every two weeks. 2) Flexible work hours or ?flex-time? is a strategy whereby an employer allows employees to set their own starting and ending hours. 3) Multiple work shifts can be used for manufacturing operations. Effectiveness of the different scheduling strategies varies. There is a question as to whether compressed workweeks reduce trips/VMT, or just give people an extra day to make nonwork trips, thereby offsetting any reductions from eliminating commute trips. Source/Reference: WSDOT, 2000, pp. 25-26.