Home telework and household commuting patterns in Great Britain

Abstract

This study provides new evidence on the relationship between household and intra-household commuting travel and home telework for Great Britain using data from the National Travel Survey for the period between 2005 and 2012. The results from the empirical models of individual and household commuting travel suggest there is some evidence of longer weekly commuting distances travelled, but shorter total travel times, for more frequent home teleworkers. The findings also suggest that there is no intra-household compensation effect between partners, that is, the home teleworking status of one of the household’s members does not appear to influence his/her partner’s commuting travel. We also find that some of the observed differences relate to the definition of home teleworker status, particularly with respect to the level of home telework frequency. Despite the increase in the share of workers using home telework at least once a week, from 4% in 2005 to 6% in 2012, the magnitude of the relationship between home teleworking and weekly commuting length and duration does not seem to have changed over the period studied. Although the findings suggest that home telework tends to increase weekly commuting distances travelled (but not travel times), data-related limitations did not allow us to address issues of selection and/or simultaneity bias; consequently we cannot make causal inference conclusions about the nature and size of the relationship between home telework and commuting patterns, and in turn its policy implications.