Browsing by Subject "Telecommuting"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    eWorkPlace Phase III Final Report
    (Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota, 2019-02) Lari, Adeel; Elabbady, Mona; Valenti, Alicia
    After enjoying significant success in the first two phases of eWorkPlace, the goals of eWorkPlace Phase III were to recruit 1,000 new teleworkers and eliminate 900 peak-hour trips per day, using the 35W@94 project in particular as an opportunity to promote telework among local employers. This report summarizes the goals and outcomes of the two prior phases of eWorkPlace and provides a detailed overview of the goals, outcomes, successes, and challenges of eWorkPlace Phase III. This report also captures the efforts of the eWorkPlace team to promote and help implement telework through events, training, and online resources. Though results from the Commuter Calculator Tool do not indicate that Phase III achieved all of its goals, the eWorkPlace team expects that promotion and implementation of telework as a result of eWorkPlace extended far beyond what was captured through the calculator. Finally, this report summarizes lessons learned from Phase III of eWorkPlace for consideration in any future phases of the project.
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    I-394 Phase II Planning Study
    (Center for Transportation Studies, 2010-07) Munnich, Lee W. Jr.; Buckeye, Kenneth
    The I-394 MnPASS Phase II Planning Study was a multi-agency collaboration that evaluated four major study elements and their relationships in a congestion priced urban corridor. These included transit, land use, infrastructure and telecommuting. A foundation for this work was the understanding that high-cost capacity expansions were not likely to occur in the corridor for 25 to 30 years despite forecasts of increasing congestion that may threaten efficiency gains achieved with conversion of the high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to high- occupancy toll (HOT) lane operation. Recommendations identified in this study are being used to guide investments in corridor facilities and services by transportation authorities and will also be used by communities adjacent to the corridor. Transit supportive land use recommendations, if implemented, can help ensure that a high level of service is maintained in the corridor for all users. While specific funding for implementation of these recommendations was not identified prior to the planning process, several compelling transit, land use and telecommuting recommendations are currently being advanced for programming. This project is a valuable case study and potential model for linking land use, transit, telecommuting and congestion pricing in a high-demand urban corridor.
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    The impact of telecommuting on residential relocation and residential preferences
    (Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2010) Ettema, Dick
    The advance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has changed travellers’ appreciation of travel distance in various ways. In the context of telecommuting, ICT increasingly allows us to work from home one or more days per week. One hypothesis that has been put forward is that because ICTs reduce the frequency of commuting, it allows workers to accept longer commute distances, implying that telecommuters have a different valuation of travel distance than regular commuters and would also favour more peripheral residential locations. The question can be raised, how- ever, whether telecommuters can be regarded as a homogeneous group with respect to their valuation of commute distance and residential preferences. To investigate the heterogeneity of commuters’ and telecommuters’ preferences, latent class discrete choice models of workers’ intended relocation probability and preferred residential environment were estimated. The results suggest that telecommuting is not a factor that can be used to identify segments with different residential preferences. However, within the group of telecommuters, two different classes can be identified, which can be characterised as being sensitive and insensitive to commute distance.
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    The impact of the residential built environment on work at home adoption and frequency: An example from Northern California
    (Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2011) Tang, Wei (Laura); Mokhtarian, Patricia; Handy, Susan
    Working at home is widely viewed as a useful travel-reduction strategy, and it is partly for that reason that considerable research related to telecommuting and home-based work has been conducted in the last two decades. This study examines the effect of residential neighborhood built environment (BE) factors on working at home. After systematically presenting and categorizing various relevant elements of the BE and reviewing related studies, we develop a multinomial logit (MNL) model of work-at-home (WAH) frequency using data from a survey of eight neighborhoods in Northern California. Potential explanatory variables include sociodemographic traits, neighborhood preferences and perceptions, objective neighborhood characteristics, and travel attitudes and behavior. The results clearly demonstrate the contribution of built environment variables to WAH choices, in addition to previously-identified influences such as sociodemographic predictors and com- mute time. BE factors associated with (neo)traditional neighborhoods were associated both positively and negatively with working at home. The findings suggest that land use and transportation strategies that are desirable from some perspectives will tend to weaken the motivation to work at home, and conversely, some factors that seem to increase the motivation to work at home are widely viewed as less sustainable. Accordingly, this research points to the complexity of trying to find the right balance among demand management strategies that sometimes act in competition rather than in synergy.
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    Mobile phones and telecommuting: Effects on trips and tours of Londoners
    (Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2011) Padayhag, Grace; Schmöcker, Jan-Dirk; Fukuda, Daisuke
    This study contributes to the existing literature on the travel behavioral effects of mobile phone possession and telecommuting by investigating the effects of both and looking at average trips and tours per day as well as tour complexity. In contrast to other studies, we investigate the effects of “informal telecommuting,” defined as working from home on a personal computer. The data used in this study is taken from the London Area Travel Survey 2001, providing us with a large sample size of 27 634 individuals. The results of our descriptive and multivariate regression analysis imply that mobile phone possession significantly and positively affects total trips made, but does not necessarily affect tour complexity. Our study provides good evidence that mobile phone possession is clearly associated to total tours made. Though telecommuting does decrease the number of work trips, trips for other purposes (such as shopping or leisure) are likely to increase. We provide further evidence that it is the simple home-work-home tours that decrease through telecommuting and are replaced by other tour types, keeping the total tour numbers fairly constant. The effects are particularly pronounced for the part-time working population. Controlling for geographic characteristics, we further find that population density has an effect on the number of leisure trips and on tour complexity but not on the number of work or shopping trips.
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    Telecommuting during COVID-19: How does it shape the future workplace and workforce?
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2022-03) Qian, Xinyi; Linscheid, Neil
    The objective of this research is to assess the impact of temporarily shifting the workforce to telecommuting on: (1) workplace policy changes, employee support, and future telecommuting plans, (2) employees' experience of telecommuting during COVID-19 and forecast of future telecommuting, and (3) differences among geographic areas, life circumstances, and demographic characteristics. The project employed a mixed-method approach, doing focus groups of human resources professionals in April 2021 and surveying workers and employers during the July through September 2021 period. Worker survey: Greater Minnesota respondents were more likely to telecommute no more than one day a week post-pandemic, while Twin Cities respondents were more likely to telecommute two to three days a week. Those with one or more children living at home were more likely to have a formal post-pandemic telecommuting agreement with their employers. Baby boomers were the most likely to telecommute four to five days a week post-pandemic. Gen Z respondents were the most likely to telecommute no more than one day a week post-pandemic. Employer survey: 71.4% of respondents indicated that most employees would return to in-person work post-pandemic, and 24.4% indicated the employers would only support infrequent (less than one day a month) telecommuting post-pandemic. Roughly a quarter indicated their organizations may recruit completely remote talent from outside of Minnesota. Employer representatives, compared to worker survey respondents, were much more likely to indicate their organizations had not developed a telecommuting policy for the future at the time of the survey. Worker survey respondents were much more likely to indicate that employers would support telecommuting anywhere between one and five days a week.
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    The Impacts of COVID-19 Telecommuting for the Twin Cities Metro Area
    (Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota, 2024-03) Lari, Adeel Z.; Sheikh, Maya I.; Douma, Frank P.
    Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, telecommuting has become increasingly prevalent across the United States and the world. As part of this change, commute patterns, and overall work and travel behavior significantly changed on scales not seen before. In addition, the changes, benefits and costs did not fall equally across all parts of the population, as some "essential" workers, who usually were lower income and from BIPOC populations, did not have the option to work from home. In this paper, the impacts of telecommuting on travel patterns, congestion, land use patterns, transit use, and especially the related equity issues arising from shifting employment online are examined at a high level. Using national- and state-level employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the American Community Survey, and ReferenceUSA, and travel data from the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT), MetroTransit and related datasets, this paper explores the impacts of teleworking, with a focus on Minnesota. From this high-level analysis, initial conclusions about the impacts of telecommuting during the pandemic are drawn, and suggestions made regarding short- and long-term implications for future transportation policies and investments.
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    Understanding the Economic Effects of Flexibility through Three Employer Case Studies
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2013-02) Saunoi-Sandgren, Emily; Lari, Adeel
    Market research conducted through the Urban Partnership Agreement (UPA) project on telework shows that employers need to be convinced of the economic benefits of telework before they will embrace such a policy. If telework is to gain widespread support in government and industry, employers need to be presented with strong evidence that telework is good for their bottom line and industry productivity. It is not clear that previous research has documented the impacts of telework from an employer perspective. This research project proposes to investigate what are the bottom line (and economic) advantages to employers of telework policies in order to fill this gap in the literature and to provide evidence to employers considering telework policies.