Abstract

Concerns about the environmental impacts of transportation have made reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) a policy priority. One way to decrease VMT is to decrease the length of commuting trips, and to get commuters out of their private vehicles. Although many studies have investigated the determinants of commuting, few have analyzed the linkage between housing costs and commuting.

To address this gap, researchers at UC Irvine developed a model that jointly explains commuting time and distance, and accounts for residential self-selection (i.e., where someone chooses to live), the effect of car ownership, and key land use characteristics around both residences and workplaces. The research focused on Los Angeles County. Census data shows that the average commute time for Los Angeles County residents pre-pandemic was 32.8 minutes, 18.8 percent higher than the national average.

Abstract

Health concerns and government restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic caused a sharp increase in telecommuting (i.e., doing paid work at home or possibly an alternate worksite). In addition to reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT), decreasing energy use, and lowering emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases (GHG), telecommuting may offer numerous other co-benefits, including increasing the worker pool, decreasing time and costs associated with travel, improving work-life balance, and decreasing stress. It may also stimulate greater use of non-motorized and active modes of travel (e.g., walking, biking, taking transit). However, telecommuting (especially during the pandemic) may also affect remote workers’ opportunities for promotion and ties with colleagues, health, work-life balance for families with children (childcare and schools did not operate normally during the pandemic), and even work productivity. It may also increase commuting length because telecommuters tend to live in more suburban areas, usually associated with fewer transit options and a higher likelihood of car use. While a large body of literature on telecommuting existed before COVID-191, this research looked at how the frequency of telecommuting changed in California during the pandemic, and how it may evolve. Whereas most previous research relied on non-random samples, the dataset used for this research was collected at the end of May 2021 by Ipsos, which randomly sampled Californian members of KnowledgePanel©, is the largest probability-based online panel in the nation, so the results are generalizable to California’s population. Quantifying changes in telecommuting is important for updating sustainable community strategies created by Metropolitan Transportation Organizations and gauging telecommuting’s likely contribution to meeting California’s GHG reduction targets. Moreover, analyzing telecommuting frequency for different socio-economic groups and occupations should help policymakers understand the long-term impacts of the pandemic on different segments of the labor market.