Longitudinal Analysis of Changes in Telecommuting Behavior and Associated Changes in Travel Behavior

Due to the increased use of information and communication technologies, there has been a higher proportion of telecommuting in recent years. And the Covid-19 pandemic has massively accelerated this trend. With the higher proportion of telecommuting, there is an increasing need to study the effects of telecommuting on travel behavior. While previous studies have mainly focused on differences between telecommuters and non-telecommuters, it is important to understand if travel behavior is driven by the characteristics of telecommuters themselves or if telecommuting induces a change in travel behavior. In this paper, we analyze panel data from the last ten years of the German Mobility Panel, a national household travel survey. A first-difference regression model is applied to assess changes in telecommuting and travel behavior beyond commuting of individuals. We estimate five different models to account for both long-term and short-term changes and changes in the telecommuting proportion itself. The results show that long-term decisions such as residential relocation and car ownersip are not immediately affected by a change in telecommuting frequency. However, in a short-term perspective, changes in travel behavior become evident. While the number of trips decreases with the proportion of working from home, the person kilometers show a positive association. The results indicate that the differences between telecommuters and non-telecommuters stem mainly from re-investing the time saved by telecommuting into longer non-work-related travel and not from behavioral differences between the two groups.