Developing an Integrated Framework for Assessing Potential Impacts of Telecommuting

The current study establishes an integrated framework to examine the impacts of home-based telecommuting on travel behavior, network congestion, and air quality. The authors first estimate a telecommuting adoption behavior model using a revealed choice data obtained from the CMAP Travel Tracker Survey. In doing so, an extension of zero-inflated ordered probit model is utilized to determine the factors affecting workers’ propensity to adopt telecommuting. Second, the authors implement the estimated model in the POLARIS activity-based framework to simulate the potential changes in workers’ activity-travel patterns and network congestion. Third, the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA’s) mobile source emission model, MOVES, is used to estimate the potential changes in vehicular emissions in the network as a result of the policy. Different adoption scenarios are then tested and it is found that telecommuting can reduce total daily vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and vehicle hours traveled (VHT) up to 2.4% and 4.15%, respectively. The authors also found that this policy has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) and particulate matter (PM ₂.₅) emissions by up to 2.65% and 2.95%, respectively. In summary, the authors' results endorse the fact that telecommuting policy has the potential to reduce network congestion and vehicular emissions, specifically during rush hours.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADB20 Standing Committee on Effects of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on Travel Choices.
• Authors:
  • Shabanpour, Ramin
  • Golshani, Nima
  • Tayarani, Mohammad
  • Auld, Joshua
  • Mohammadian, Abolfazl (Kouros)
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
• Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: References;
• Pagination: 6p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air quality; Environmental impacts; Exhaust gases; Greenhouse gases; Particulates; Probits; Revealed preferences; Telecommuting; Traffic congestion; Travel behavior; Vehicle miles of travel
• Uncontrolled Terms: Vehicle hours traveled
• Subject Areas: Environment; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01659529
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 18-01118
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 7 2018 1:41PM