The emerging spectrum of flexible work locations: implications for travel demand and carbon emissions

TL;DR

This study examines how remote workers' use of third places like cafes and co-working spaces affects travel demand and carbon emissions, revealing significant underestimations in previous models that only considered home-based remote work.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of third place usage among remote workers and quantifies its impact on travel demand and emissions, providing new insights for urban policy.

Findings

Ignoring third places underestimates emissions by 24%.

Remote work shifts travel from city centers to suburban areas.

Future remote work could further reduce emissions.

Abstract

Many studies of the effect of remote work on travel demand assume that remote work takes place entirely at home. Recent evidence, however, shows that in the United States, remote workers are choosing to spend approximately one third of their remote work hours outside of the home at cafes, co-working spaces or the homes of friends and family. Commutes to these "third places" could offset much of the reduction in congestion and carbon emissions from commuting that could be expected from greater shares of remote work. To estimate the impact of third places on congestion and carbon emission from commuting, this study uses a national survey of thousands of remote workers and large-scale mobile trace data to predict current and future commuting patterns for the Chicago metropolitan area. The study reveals that ignoring third places leads to an underestimation of carbon emissions from commute-based travel demand by 470 gigatons per year, or 24% of the total true emissions. Moreover, if workers' latent desire for greater levels of remote work are realized in the future, the emissions benefits will be reduced further. The spatial analyses imply that there is a decrease in visits to the city center and outskirts, but an increase in visits to near suburban areas. Implications of these results for urban transportation and land use policy are discussed.