Telecommuting as a Sustainable Transportation Measure in Ecuador

Alvaro Nicolás Corral Naveda

doi:10.29019/enfoqueute.786

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to provide information to determine that telecommuting in Ecuador can be used as a measure of sustainable transport. Briefly, sustainable development is described, and certain definitions and approaches related to sustainable transport are covered, for instance, the Avoid-Shift-Improve (ASI) approach, as well as the Transport Demand Management (TDM), which serve to validate from a conceptual point of view the application and usefulness of telecommuting. An overview of the current situation in the transport sector in Ecuador is analyzed; the final energy demand; the environmental aspects related to transport, and the amount of public and private employees that are telecommuting. Taking into consideration some hypothesis, such as car ownership rate, the total amount of kilometers driven per year, the assumption of the distance travelled by employees who take public transportation; the assumptions helped to determine the savings that can be obtained through telecommuting in the present time. Therefore, these results would provide adequate information for decision makers to establish a conclusive pronouncement on whether or not support telecommuting as a valid working approach, and to develop the necessary policies to maintain it over time.

Highlights

The importance to attain sustainable development is crucial for the progress of countries and inhabitant’s improvement quality of life
In order to carry out a detailed analysis of energy savings and determine the decrease in emissions in the transport sector, it is imperative to conduct surveys to employees who are telecommuting, in order to determine the vehicle kilometers travelled VKT and the mode of transport used to get to their workplaces
According to the National Survey of Income and Expenditure of urban and rural households, developed by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses INEC in 2012, it can be assumed that the employees that are telecommuting correspond to the two highest deciles; considering that a higher income is correlated to the level of education; all of the employees are located in urban areas; the average income of the highest two deciles is $1 875 USD; the percentage of the two highest deciles corresponds to 42 % among all deciles; the total average spending is $1 508.50 USD; the average percentage of household consumption expenses in transport related activities is 18.76 % from the total (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos, 2012)

Summary

Introduction

The importance to attain sustainable development is crucial for the progress of countries and inhabitant’s improvement quality of life. For the first time it was proposed by the American physicist Jack Nilles in 1973 (Corbi, 2014) during the oil peak of the 1970s and defined it in 1976 as: “any form of substitution of displacements related to work activity by technologies of the information” or more explicitly “the possibility of sending the job to the worker, instead of sending the worker to the job” The International Labor Organization defined telecommuting in 1990 as one that “is carried out in a distant place from the central office or the production center and it involves a new technology that allows separation and facilitates information” The International Labor Organization defined telecommuting in 1990 as one that “is carried out in a distant place from the central office or the production center and it involves a new technology that allows separation and facilitates information” (Navarrete Rojas, 2014, p. 46)

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Conclusion