UCLA Transportation staff members accept the 2011 Corporate Diamond Award, from left, Charles Carter, Isabell Rodriguez, Natalie Anderson, Penny Menton, Gloria Wallace, Jumy Rollins, Matthew Hissom, Yolanda Hayes, Michael King and Christine Domin.

Transportation officials in the tri-county region of Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties handed out Diamond awards Tuesday to Southland employers whose top-ranking rideshare programs provide employees with a full range of rideshare commuter options, services and programs.

The Corporate Blue Diamond Award for 2011 was awarded to UCLA Transportation for development and robust management of commuting options for a daily campus population of 65,000.

Nearly half of the UCLA employees and 70 percent of commuting students get to work and school through alternative means.  And when all efforts to mitigate traffic are considered, UCLA generates less vehicle traffic today than it did in 1990, despite a 30 percent growth in the campus. In last year alone, car trips decreased by two percent.

In the game since just prior to the 1984 Summer Olympics, the quest for alternative commuting continues: A new Bruin commuter club will debut next month.

See the news release for a complete report.

More! The winners, after the jump.

The top rideshare programs in Los Angeles County included Los Angeles World Airports, UCLA Transportation, ECOmmute Program of Pasadena Towers, Los Angeles County Dept. of Children and Family Services, Howard Hughes Center, Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association (LACERA) Rideshare Team, and Huntington Pavilion GO Group.

A special Jade Award – for excellence in a vanpool program – went to Jet Propulsion Laboratory corporate headquarters in Pasadena.

Honorable mentions lauded innovative solutions of employers based in Los Angeles County who advanced rideshare participation and make the region a better place to live. Those so honored were: Aerospace Commute Services, DIRECTV , Xerox Corporation, Southern California Edison, Northrop Grumman, California State University Los Angeles, Metropolitan Water District, Kaiser Permanente, and Fuller Theological Seminary.

The top honors in Ventura County went to “ETC of the Year” Nancy Mcclure of Community Memorial Hospital, and the rideshare programs of SolarWorld Industries America LP, Wellpoint, Inc. and City of Ventura Police Department.

Awards for Orange County top efforts in commuting and parking management on behalf of their employees and the community went to “ETC of the Year” Michael Davis of U.C. Irvine, the Irvine Ranch Water District, MicroVention Inc., Fluor Corporation and The Disneyland Resort / Anaheim Transportation Network.