research report

The Future of Working Away from Work and Daily Travel: A Research Synthesis

Publication Date

March 3, 2023

Author(s)

Samuel Speroni, Brian D. Taylor

Abstract

This research synthesizes literature on the relationship between working from home and travel. This relationship is a pertinent one because transportation planners and policymakers have long hoped that increased remote work, sometimes called telecommuting or telework, will reduce driving, traffic congestion, and vehicle emissions. This question is especially pertinent today because working from home increased dramatically early in the COVID-19 pandemic and has remained at substantially elevated levels since then. To examine this issue, the team reviews nearly 100 research articles, reports, and some popular accounts of telecommuting and travel prior to and during the pandemic. In conducting this review, the team arrives at five principal findings. First, remote work increased dramatically with the onset of the pandemic and appears likely to remain elevated for many years to come. Second, while not everyone can work remotely, for those who have the option to do so, at least part-time, this hybrid option is extremely popular with most workers. Third, employers tend to be skeptical of the benefits of remote work, but the research does not support fears of declining productivity in the near term, and the tight post-pandemic labor market has given workers leverage to insist on remote work options. Fourth, telecommuting has long been touted as a potential solution to chronic transportation problems like traffic congestion and vehicle emissions, but the research has consistently found that it is more likely to increase, rather than decrease, overall driving among remote workers. This extra driving is due both to hybrid workers living farther from work, on average, than non-remote workers and to all remote workers making more household-serving and personal trips when they work from home. And fifth, public transit systems, in contrast to street and highway systems, have been dramatically affected by the pandemic, likely due substantially to the rise in remote work it has engendered. The future of many public transit systems, which draw an outsized share of their riders from commuters to downtowns and other major job centers, will depend on whether and to what extent those job centers re-densify with workers in the months and years ahead.

published journal article

Pandemic transit: Examining transit use changes and equity implications in Boston, Houston, and Los Angeles

Abstract

While the COVID-19 pandemic upended many aspects of life as we knew it, its effects on U.S. public transit were especially dramatic. Many former transit commuters began to work from home or switched to traveling via private vehicles. But for those who continued to work outside the home and could not drive—who were more likely low-income and Black or Hispanic—transit remained an important means of mobility. However, most transit agencies reduced service during the first year of the pandemic, reflecting reduced ridership demand, increasing costs, and uncertain budgets. To analyze the effects of the pandemic on transit systems and their users, we examine bus ridership changes by neighborhood in Boston, Houston, and Los Angeles from 2019 to 2020. Combining aggregated stop-level boarding data, passenger surveys, and census data, we identify associations between shifting travel patterns and neighborhoods. We find that early in the pandemic, neighborhoods with more poor and non-white households lost proportionally fewer riders; however, this gap between high- and low-ridership-loss neighborhoods shrank as the pandemic wore on. We also model ridership change controlling for multiple factors. Ridership in Houston and LA generally outperformed Boston, with the built environment and demographic factors accounting for some of the observed differences. Neighborhoods with high shares of Hispanic and African American residents retained more riders in the pandemic, while those with higher levels of auto access and with more workers able to work from home lost more riders, all else equal. We conclude that transit’s social service role elevated during the pandemic, and that serving travelers in disadvantaged neighborhoods will likely remain paramount emerging from it.

policy brief

Are Accessibility Evaluation Tools Ready for Prime Time?

Abstract

In the United States, local governments typically evaluate the transportation impacts of new development based on the expected effects of the development on nearby traffic flows. These flows are most often measured in terms of “level-of-service,” or LOS, from “A” (free flow) to “F” (forced flow). If a traffic impact analysis (TIA) finds that the LOS on streets and intersections near the proposed development will degrade below a certain threshold, the project developer may be required to undertake mitigation efforts, including funding nearby transportation system improvements to lessen the projected traffic delays occasioned by the new development and/or reduce the scale of the proposal — or they may risk the project not being approved at all. LOS mitigation frequently ignores travel via modes — such as walking, biking, scooters, or public transit — other than motor vehicles. This emphasis on nearby traffic effects and motor vehicle mobility can discourage development in already built-up areas and, in doing so, ignore both the project’s regional effects on travel and traffic and the economic, social, and environmental benefits that arise from agglomerations of activities.In response, a growing number of researchers and practitioners have argued that an accessibility-focused approach would be a more conceptually complete and practical way to assess the transportation effects of new developments. Accessibility analyses consider the ease by which various destinations can be accessed by foot, bike, and public transit, as well as by car, and how proposed new developments might change this. As the number of accessibility adherents in planning research and practice has grown, there has been significant progress in the development of access evaluation measures and tools. For this research, we (1) developed a conceptual framework for accessibility analysis (Figure 1), (2) used this framework to assess the promise and pitfalls of 54 measures and tools developed to evaluate access, and (3) conducted interviews with five practitioners around the U.S. to learn about early efforts to incorporate access measurement into planning practice.

published journal article

Tools of the Trade? Assessing the Progress of Accessibility Measures for Planning Practice

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings:
A growing number of planning researchers and practitioners argue for a shift from mobility-centered transportation planning to an accessibility-focused one. Accessibility is a compelling concept that has proven more difficult to operationalize than mobility, which helps to explain why so many accessibility metrics have been developed for urban research and planning practice. To assess the state of these metrics, we reviewed 54 of them in light of their theoretical basis, data requirements, units of analysis, travel modes and trip purposes accounted for, and potential applications to planning practice. We also reviewed the substantial literature on accessibility measurement and interviewed planning practitioners who are applying accessibility metrics in practice. We find that accessibility theory and measurement have advanced more rapidly than applications in practice. However, a new generation of tools is emerging that may accelerate the move to accessibility planning. Although many of the measures focus on a single travel mode, the number of multimodal metrics is growing. Most of the measures are designed for regional-scale planning and scenario evaluation; only a few to date are intended for project evaluation.

Takeaway for practice:
The 54 accessibility metrics and tools we reviewed vary widely and none stands out as obviously superior for planning practice. Although most calculate the accessibility of places, and many do so reasonably well, we see the most promise in measures of the accessibility of travelers, which can then be aggregated for place-based analyses while still shedding light on how access can vary substantially across different types of travelers. The principal challenge to broadly deploying accessibility analyses in practice in the years ahead is in developing measures that meaningfully measure the many salient dimensions of access, have manageable data requirements, and are understandable to planners, public officials, and community members.

other

Is Accessibility Evaluation Ready for Prime Time?

website

Bulldozing Asian Communities: Freeway Construction and Urban Renewal in Stockton

research report

Evaluating Place-based Transportation Plans

Abstract

The paper asks how place-based transportation plans are being evaluated, and what insights from the broader policy and plan evaluation research literature might inform evaluation design. We complement a review of the evaluation literature with six expert interviews with 15 people. We find that California agencies and their community partners have high expectations for evaluations of place-based transportation plans. So far, however, those evaluations have been less successful in providing detailed information on outcomes and the causal impact of interventions. This does not reflect the shortcomings of the evaluation teams, but rather the inherent challenges in holistically assessing a diverse set of projects on different implementation timelines in a project area with porous boundaries. There is also a fundamental difficulty with the evaluation scale. California’s place-based transportation plans have often been evaluated individually. But in general, evaluations, particularly quantitative causal inference methods, are most effective with a larger number of projects or sites. We suggest a two-pronged approach to addressing the tensions that we identify between place-specific knowledge and generalizable conclusions. The first prong, at the site level, would emphasize process evaluations and assessment of outputs and outcomes. The second prong would focus on impacts across multiple sites and the extent to which place-based transportation programs have a causal role.

policy brief

What Does the Prevalence of Telecommuting Mean for Urban Planning?

Publication Date

January 6, 2024

Author(s)

Alex Okashita, Harold Arzate, Jae Hong Kim

Abstract

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, are looking into what may become the “new normal” in work and work-related travel and the consequences that could have on traffic conditions, efforts to address climate change, and the future of our urban areas, as well as our daily lives. They find, for instance, that current research is largely equivocal about the consequences of telecommuting on where individuals choose to live, their day-to-day travel, and urban/metropolitan development. Equally unclear is how increased telecommuting may impact efforts to create more sustainable and inclusive communities. In light of this uncertainty, they suggest planners and researchers need to pay more attention to the changing nature of urban commuting and how it can play an important role in shaping a more desirable future.

research report

Telecommuting and the Open Future

Publication Date

January 6, 2024

Author(s)

Alex Okashita, Harold Arzate, Jae Hong Kim

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated renewed interest in how telecommuting can alter the workings of cities and regions, but there is little guidance on how to align planning practice with the new reality. This report synthesizes the research on telecommuting and its consequences to help planners better understand what effects may occur from the proliferation of telecommuting and what lessons can be drawn from research findings. Emphasis is on the broad relevance of telecommuting to many domains of planning, including housing, land use, community development, and inclusive place-making, while attention is paid to changes in travel demand, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and greenhouse gas emissions. The research suggests that telecommuting can occur in a variety of ways, and its impacts are largely dependent not only on the type/schedule of telecommuting but also on the built environment, transit accessibility, and other amenities/opportunities the location provides. The varying impacts reported in the research can be seen as an encouragement for planners to actively create a better future rather than merely responding to the rise of telecommuting. Given the breadth of telecommuting’s impacts, systematic coordination across various planning domains will be increasingly important. This report also calls for collaboration across cities to guide the ongoing transformation induced by telecommuting not in a way that leads to more residential segregation but in a way that provides more sustainable and inclusive communities.

policy brief

Going Nowhere Fast: Why Personal Travel is Down Across the U.S.

Publication Date

April 1, 2023

Author(s)

Samuel Speroni, Brian D. Taylor, Mark Garrett

Abstract

After a century of almost continuous growth in vehicle travel in the U.S., the first decades of the 21st century saw vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per capita fall slightly, from 9,963 in 2003 to 9,937 in 2019. While some of the decline can be attributed to the Great Recession of 2007-2010, VMT did not fully rebound following the economic recovery. A much slower recovery from the recession among young people, more stringent driver’s licensing rules, rising preferences for dense urban living, high gas prices, an aging population, rising environmentalism, and the near saturation of vehicle ownership1 have all been proffered as possible explanations, but these don’t tell the whole story. In a new study, researchers at Clemson University and the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies suggest we may be seeing a fundamental change in the demand for out-of-home activities that drive vehicle travel. Using data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) collected between 2003 and 2019, the authors propose that the fundamental cause of declining per capita travel time is an underlying reduction in the demand for out-of-home activities, driven in part by spectacular advancements in information and communications technology