Unveiling daily activity pattern differences between telecommuters and commuters using human mobility motifs and sequence analysis

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the use of motif and sequence analysis in tandem to analyse differences and commonalities between telecommuters and usual commuters. In terms of substantive findings, telecommuters are by far more diverse in their allocation of time to places, activities, and travel. Approximately 20% of telecommuters stay at home all day during a workday, while only 8% of commuters do. Telecommuters that have at least one trip during their workday accrue more vehicle miles travelled and number of trips than their commuter counterparts. However, they travel less driving alone and tend to have more complex schedules visiting more locations. Within telecommuters and commuters, however, we have substantial variation in activity participation and travel captured by the combination of motifs and sequence analysis. As expected, a substantial proportion of commuters display morning and afternoon peaks of arriving at and departing from work, and telecommuters do not show this pattern. In addition, telecommuters do not only perform work tasks from home. Instead, during a day a high percentage travel to a variety of locations to either visit customers and/or use their spatio-temporal schedule flexibility to perform work tasks from locations other than home. In contrast, more than 80% of commuters perform work at their workplace. In addition, a slightly higher proportion of telecommuters function as the designated driver escorting other people to their activity locations.