Telecommuting                                                      Printer-friendly version

What Is It?

• Telecommuting is when employees work at home or at a satellite or neighborhood work center using electronic communications to interact with coworkers rather than interacting in person.
• Telecommuting employees meet certain employer qualifications and usually telecommute only part of the time, generally one to two days a week.
• Non-work activities can also be engaged in remotely. Examples are tele-learning (distance learning via electronic communications) and Internet shopping, banking, and research.

Key Results

Potential travel impacts

• A reduction of total traffic: telecommuting reduces commute trips but may increase other vehicle trips.
• A reduction of peak-period traffic: commute trips are reduced.
• Land use: in the long-run telecommuting may encourage workers to locate further away from work sites hence encouraging more dispersed development.

• Telecommuters often make additional trips to run errands that would otherwise be made during a commute.
• Vehicles not used for commute may be used by other household members.
• Employees may locate further away from work sites thus offsetting the reduced number of trips with increased trip lengths.

Forthcoming research by Mokhtarian (Urban Studies 2000) suggests that 6.1% of the workforce may be currently telecommuting (at least in California), 1.2 days a week on average, with the result that 1.5% of the workforce may be telecommuting on any given day. It is estimated that the vehicle-miles eliminated by this level of telecommuting constitute at most 1.1% of total household vehicle travel. When the limited knowledge about potential stimulation effects of telecommuting is incorporated, it is estimated that the net reduction falls to at most 0.6% of household travel. Reductions in the future could be smaller as commute distances of telecommuters decreases (current telecommuters have longer than average commute distances) and as the stimulation effect grows.

Nilles (1996) estimates that up to 50% of employees in developed countries are potential telecommuters, and that if 10% of the workforce telecommutes on any given day, total vehicle travel would decline by 4%. Mokhtarian (1997) concludes that a more realistic estimate is 1-2% for the reasons noted above. Little is known about the impacts of tele-learning, tele-shopping, and other tele-services. Benefits

• Employees: commute time savings and cost savings
• Employers: space savings, enhanced employee productivity
• Users of tele-learning, tele-banking, tele-shopping, and Internet research: travel time savings, enhanced access to goods and services
• Public: reduced peak-period congestion; to the extent that total travel is reduced there may be reductions in accidents and vehicle emissions.

• Telecommuting equipment installation and maintenance (computers, furniture etc.).
• Personnel training; insurance and administrative costs of administering a program; indirect costs of changes in managerial style, procedures for insuring data security, less availability of employees for impromptu meetings.
• More dispersed development.

Implementation Challenges

The main challenge to the implementation of telecommuting programs is employer reticence. Other implementation issues are:

• Agreements with labor unions may sometimes be necessary to overcome concerns regarding employee protection at home.
• Telecommuter coverage under Workers' Compensation for job related accidents occurring when the employee is working at home.
• Modification of local zoning codes which prohibit or discourage work at home arrangements. Some of these laws arose in the 1940's out of concern for "sweatshops" and "cottage industries."

• United States: Telecommuting occurs throughout the nation. Examples include Washington State (Puget Sound Telecommuting Demonstration Project), Los Angeles California (First Interstate Bank), Arizona (State of Arizona Telecommuting Program).
• Europe: telecommuting is practiced throughout the continent. For a list of countries and their respective programs visit the European Telework On-Line site at
• On a more limited basis in Asia (in particular Japan) and Latin America.

Author: Dimitri Loukakos