Telecommuting is seen as a solution to problems of congestion. The available research promises a significant decrease in travel. In this paper the expected effects are disputed. The expectation is that part-time "telework" will cause larger commuting trips on non-telework days. The data analyses are performed for people who visit a fixed working address three days a week (representing teleworkers) and people who visit their working address five days a week. The first conclusion is, that husbands have a greater travel time when they visit the working address three days instead of five. Another result is that people with a higher level of education, who are most suitable for telework, have higher travel times and are most likely to increase it when they can limit their commuting days to three. These results support the idea, that telework could lead to longer distances rather than to a significant decrease in travel. Research of established telecommuters must show if the results in this paper apply to them.
Abstract