Telecommuting has long been indicated as a possible travel demand strategy; however, previous studies highlight the complementary effects working from home can have on household trips and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) generation. This study aims to analyze this relationship further by controlling for both socioeconomics and the built environment in pre-COVID-19 cross-sectional data with precise locations of households from California. This study categorizes the frequency of telecommuting per month into three categories – occasional (1–5 days monthly), frequent (6–10 days monthly), and regular (more than 10 days monthly), plus categories for non-working and working, non-telecommuting groups. Spatial patterns, descriptive statistics, and basic statistical testing all indicate relationships linking levels of telecommuting frequency, household trips, and household VMT generation. However, regression analyses demonstrate that only household trips continue increasing at each level of telecommuting frequency, while only occasional and regular telecommuters were correlated with increased overall VMT production. Disaggregating travel by purpose shows that no significant relationships exist between home-based non-work travel and telecommuting, while non-home-based trips increased with all telecommuters and non-home based VMT increases with occasional and regular telecommuting. This study adds insight to previous literature by showing the relationships that telecommuting frequency, trip purpose, household characteristics, and the built environment have with travel behavior. The study demonstrates that telecommuting may not be a travel demand strategy in and of itself, but its complementary effect on household trips need not increase VMT generation if policymakers and planners create efficient, sustainable, and equitable transportation systems to filter extra household trips into environmentally sustainable travel modes.

中文翻译：

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量化远程办公对家庭总出行和 VMT 生成的影响


长期以来，远程办公一直被认为是一种可能的旅行需求策略;然而，以前的研究强调了在家工作对家庭出行和车辆行驶里程 （VMT） 生成产生的互补影响。本研究旨在通过控制 COVID-19 之前的横断面数据中的社会经济学和建筑环境以及来自加利福尼亚的家庭的精确位置来进一步分析这种关系。本研究将每月远程办公的频率分为三类——偶尔（每月 1-5 天）、频繁（每月 6-10 天）和定期（每月超过 10 天），以及非工作和工作、非远程办公群体的类别。空间模式、描述性统计和基本统计测试都表明了远程办公频率水平、住户出行和家庭 VMT 生成之间的联系。然而，回归分析表明，在远程办公频率的每个级别上，只有家庭出行继续增加，而只有偶尔和定期的远程办公者与整体 VMT 产量的增加相关。按目的分类旅行表明，基于家庭的非工作旅行与远程办公之间不存在显着关系，而所有远程办公者的非家庭旅行增加，非家庭 VMT 随着偶尔和定期远程办公的增加而增加。这项研究通过展示远程办公频率、出行目的、家庭特征和建筑环境与出行行为的关系，增加了对以前文献的见解。 该研究表明，远程办公本身可能不是一种旅行需求策略，但如果政策制定者和规划者创建高效、可持续和公平的交通系统，将额外的家庭出行过滤为环境可持续的出行方式，那么它对家庭出行的互补作用就不需要增加 VMT 的产生。