The Impact of the Residential Built Environment on Work at Home Adoption and Frequency: An Example from Northern California

Considerable research related to telecommuting and home-based work has been conducted in the last two decades. The contribution of this study is to examine the effect of residential neighborhood built environment (BE) factors on working at home. Using data from a survey of eight neighborhoods in Northern California, we develop binary logit models of work-at-home (WAH) adoption, and multinomial logit models of WAH frequency category. 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 commute time. 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.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Tang, Wei
  • Mokhtarian, Patricia L
  • Handy, Susan L
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2007-1-21 to 2007-1-25
• Date: 2007

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: References; Tables;
• Pagination: 23p
• Monograph Title: TRB 86th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers CD-ROM

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Built environment; Logits; Multinomial logits; Residential areas; Residential location; Telecommuting; Traffic forecasting; Transportation planning; Travel; Travel behavior
• Uncontrolled Terms: Binary logit models; Home offices
• Geographic Terms: Northern California
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Society; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01047517
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 07-3005
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: May 2 2007 1:01PM