Forced by the COVID-19 pandemic and enabled by technology improvements, telework has received a big boost over the past 15 months. In addition to reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT), decreasing energy use, and lowering emissions of both air pollutants and of greenhouse gases, telecommuting has numerous potential co-benefits, including saving time (from commuting) and money (on gas and parking), increasing schedule flexibility, potentially improving work-life balance, and reducing stress (Gajendran and Harrison, 2007). To understand the extent to which telecommuting could increase because of the pandemic, this project will analyze a unique dataset on commuting and telework collected during a May-June 2021 random survey of Californians conducted by IPSOS. In addition, the research will quantify changes in VMT and in the resulting emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases. Quantifying recent changes in telecommuting is important to update sustainable community strategies and for understanding the likely contribution of telecommuting in meeting California’s GHG reduction targets.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted day-to-day business and triggered massive changes in travel behavior for work and other activities. Due to social distance and travel restrictions imposed during the pandemic, teleworking has become much more prominent: a survey estimated that between February and May 2020, over one-third of the American labor force switched from in-person work to telework. The Census Pulse Survey (2020-2021) reported that 40% of households in California indicated that at least one household member substituted in-person work with telework (compared to the US national average of 37%). The pandemic provides a unique opportunity to examine the potential impacts of teleworking on travel and measure the potential effectiveness of this work arrangement as a travel demand and environmental management tool. This study examines changes in telecommuting and the resulting activity-travel behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a particular focus on California. A geographical approach was taken to “zoom in” to the county level and to major regions in California and to “zoom out” to comparable states (New York, Texas, Florida). Nearly one-third of the domestic workforce worked from home during the pandemic, a rate almost six times higher than the pre-pandemic level. At least one member from 35 percent of U.S. households replaced in-person work with telework; these individuals tended to belong to higher income, White, and Asian households. Workplace visits have continued to remain below pre-pandemic levels, but visits to non-work locations initially declined but gradually increased over the first nine months of the pandemic. During this period, the total number of trips in all distance categories except long-distance travel decreased considerably. Among the selected states, California experienced a higher reduction in both work and non-workplace visits and the State’s urban counties had higher reductions in workplace visits than rural counties. The findings of this study provide insights to improve understanding of the impact of telecommuting on travel behavior during the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the imposed social distancing measures led many people to adopt telecommuting arrangements — working from home or teleworking — on a large scale. A recent survey found that, between February and May 2020, over one-third of the American labor force swapped in-person work with telework, which increased the share of remote working to nearly 50 percent of the nation’s workforce. These massive changes in work arrangements may have long-term impacts, including how work is organized, where work is performed, and how activities and travel are scheduled. If telecommuting continues it is important to know whether it results in less travel, less commute stress, and consequently a happier life. This study explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on telecommuting (working from home) and travel during the first year of the pandemic in the United States (from March 2020 to March 2021), with a particular focus on examining the variation in impact across different geographies. The 50 U.S. states are divided into several clusters based on their geographic and telecommuting characteristics, including 6 small urban states, 8 large urban states, 18 urban–rural mixed states, and 17 rural states. Combining data from multiple sources, this study finds that nearly one-third of the U.S. workforce worked from home during the pandemic, which was six times higher than the pre-pandemic period, and that these fractions varied across the clusters. More people worked from home in urban states compared with rural states. As well as telecommuting, several activity travel trends were also examined across these clusters: reduction in the number of activity visits; changes in the number of trips and vehicle-miles traveled; and mode usage. Findings show there was a greater reduction in the number of workplace and nonworkplace visits in urban states compared with rural states. The number of trips in all distance categories decreased except for long-distance trips, which increased during the summer and fall of 2020. The changes in overall mode usage frequency were similar across urban and rural states with a large drop in ride-hailing and transit use.