Potential rebound effects of teleworking on residential and daily mobility

The practice of teleworking has been growing steadily in recent years with the development of ICT and the flexibilisation of work. The Covid-19 pandemic and its stay-at-home restrictions have further accelerated this trend. As teleworking reduces the frequency of commuting, it also reduces CO2 emissions and may be seen as a tool to regulate mobility. However, and especially since working from home enables more flexible working, teleworking may have various ‘rebound‘ effects on daily and residential mobility practices. Rebound effects include possible increases in the frequency or distance of journeys, such as an increase in non-work-related travel on teleworking days, as well as effects such as residential relocation or multilocal dwelling. In this article we intend to introduce and categorize the existing literature on the potential rebound effects of teleworking on residential and daily mobility. By critically assessing the literature we have identified the major lessons, while also noticing the limits of the research and a scarcity of qualitative approaches to understand how and why people who telework reinvest their non-commuting time in other forms of mobility. Also missing in the literature is the longitudinal aspect, that is, the consideration of long-term changes. These gaps have led us to formulate our proposition of a research agenda, where the lifestyle and life course approaches have emerged as crucial tools to understanding the motivations for teleworking and the respective rebound effects on residential and daily mobility

The effects of teleworking on CO2 emissions from commuting: baselining key data to investigate transformative change in living labs

The quantitative monitoring of the greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation potential of interventions is central to a living-lab approach and is a methodological challenge. Valid population data on consumption patterns and mobility behaviour are often scarce, especially when the living lab is initially set up (for example, the need for baseline data before an intervention). In the context of transportation studies, a cross-sectional survey was carried out to baseline key data on GHG emissions generated by commuting before implementing an intervention. Based on this information, the GHG emissions from commuting were calculated and analysed using a linear regression model. Results show the effects of different variables, such as the share of teleworking within a working week, the regular workplace location, and attitudes towards individual mobility and former relocation behaviour. An increase in teleworking of 10 per cent based on weekly working time leads to a reduction of approximately 60 kg of GHG (8 per cent) emissions a year. Our results serve as baseline key data to analyse upcoming (temporary) interventions (for example, new coworking spaces within our living lab). Hints for rebound effects, limitations of our study and future interventions are discussed