The impacts of remote work on travel: insights from nearly three years of monthly surveys

TL;DR

This study analyzes nearly three years of survey data to reveal how remote work influences travel patterns, showing shifts in location, mode, and timing of trips, with implications for policy and planning.

Contribution

It provides comprehensive insights into remote workers' travel behavior, linking it to organizational factors and highlighting new travel trends over an extended period.

Findings

One third of remote work hours occur outside the home.

Remote workers' trips to third places are shorter and more sustainable.

Hybrid work leads to more non-work trips.

Abstract

Remote work has expanded dramatically since 2020, upending longstanding travel patterns and behavior. More fundamentally, the flexibility for remote workers to choose when and where to work has created much stronger connections between travel behavior and organizational behavior. This paper uses a large and comprehensive monthly longitudinal survey over nearly three years to identify new trends in work location choice, mode choice and departure time of remote workers. The travel behavior of remote workers is found to be highly associated with employer characteristics, task characteristics, employer remote work policies, coordination between colleagues and attitudes towards remote work. Approximately one third of all remote work hours are shown to take place outside of the home, accounting for over one third of all commuting trips. These commutes to "third places" are shorter, less likely to occur during peak periods, and more likely to use sustainable travel modes than commutes to an employer's primary workplace. Hybrid work arrangements are also associated with a greater number of non-work trips than fully remote and fully in-person arrangements. Implications of this research for policy makers, shared mobility provides and land use planning are discussed.