An estimation of total vehicle travel reduction in the case of telecommuting. Detailed analyses using an activity-based approach.

Abstract

Transportation Demand Management (TDM) is often referred to as a strategy adopted by transport planners with the goal to increase transport system efficiency. One of the potential measures that can be adopted in TDM is the implementation of telecommuting. A significant number of studies have been conducted in the past to evaluate the effect of telecommuting on the amount of peak-period trips. However it is less studied whether telecommuting also effectively and significantly reduces total vehicle travel in terms of kilometers traveled throughout the day. For this reason, a conventional modeling approach was adopted in this paper to calculate total kilometers of travel saved in the case telecommuting would materialize in the Flanders area. In a second part, this paper introduces the use of an activity-based modeling approach to evaluate the effect of telecommuting on a more detailed time scale. As the second approach provides a more disaggregate result, both models can be compared on the more aggregate level to validate whether they correspond.