Does telework weaken urban structure–travel relationships?

Abstract

This paper investigates whether urban structure influences daily travel behavior differently when people telework in urban contexts. Regression models are applied to address whether and to what extent travel is associated with various measures of urban structure and key destination accessibility relative to the home location in Gothenburg, Sweden. The analysis treats groups of workers defined by teleworking practices. Micro-level data from the Swedish National Travel Survey 2011 capture individual travel behavior, while Swedish register data on the location of all firms and individuals combined with a GIS-based tool that measures travel times by car or public transport capture urban structure. Results indicate that telework weakens the relationship between urban structure and travel. Regression models of travel distance and time as functions of various geographical aspects of residential location display a much better fit for those not teleworking regularly. Telework allows various mobility strategies that together foster more spatially heterogeneous daily travel behavior, more dependent on personal attributes than on the home location relative to the workplace. Planners and policymakers should monitor whether the number of teleworkers continues to increase. If so, traditional distance-and location-based models and policies for predicting and planning transport may prove less accurate and effective than currently assumed.

Who Is Eligible for Telework? Exploring the Fast-Growing Acceptance of and Ability to Telework in Sweden, 2005–2006 to 2011–2014

“…Unlike many corresponding surveys in other countries, NTS is also designed to capture daily practices of teleworking, mobile work (e.g., during commuting), tele-and videoconferencing, access to ICT and so forth. It has been used in previous research on telework in Sweden (e.g., Elldér 2017;Vilhelmson and Thulin 2016). Respondents answer a number of questions about when in the day, how often per week and month, where and for how long they practice telework and other forms of mobile and virtual work, as well as about the digital accessibility of the workplace.…”

Does telecommuting save energy? A critical review of quantitative studies and their research methods

“…Note papers that quantify transportation distance were included. Study Scope of energy/GHG emission quantification Primary research Method(s) Transportation Offices Homes ICT Metrics of main results Modeling/simulation Survey/interview/focus group Secondary/existing data analysis [3] X E, GHG X [7] X E, GHG X [8] X – X [17] X GHG X [22] X – X [26] X X E [30] X GHG X [31] X GHG X [32] X – X [46] X X E X [49] X X E X …”

“…Similarly, Elldér [22] analyzed the Swedish National Travel Survey. The survey is based on a single day of travel diaries, which has the limitations.…”

“…Moreover, it may be difficult to control for other variables. For example, teleworkers are more likely to be knowledge workers, which means they are, on average, wealthier and more likely to own vehicles [22] .…”

“…With the exception of Giovanis [30] , the regional and national travel surveys were not longitudinal (i.e., tracking the same participants between years). On spatial scale, the results of the review above indicate that future studies should include entire households, due to the complexities of household-level decision-making [22] , [14] .…”