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Telecommuting and environmental policy - lessons from the Ecommute program

Author

Listed:
  • Margaret Walls
  • Peter Nelson
  • Elena Safirova
Abstract
In 1999 US Congress passed the National Air Quality and Telecommuting Act. This Act established pilot telecommuting programs (Ecommute) in five major US metropolitan areas with the express purpose of studying the feasibility of addressing air quality concerns through telecommuting. The major goal of the Ecommute program was to examine whether a particular type of economic incentive, tradable emissions credits from telecommuting, represents a viable strategy for reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and improving air quality. Under the Ecommute program, companies could generate emissions credits by reducing the VMT of their workforce through telework programs. They would then be able to sell the credits to firms that needed the reductions to comply with air quality regulations. The paper provides analysis of the results of Ecommute program. First, we establish some context for evaluating whether the envisioned trading scheme represents a feasible approach to reducing mobile source emissions and promoting telecommuting and review the limited experience with mobile source emissions trading programs. We find that from a regulatory perspective, the most substantial drawback to such a program is its questionable environmental integrity, resulting from difficulties in designing a sufficiently rigorous quantification protocols to accurately measure the emissions reductions from telecommuting. And perhaps more importantly, such a program is not likely to be cost-effective since the emissions reductions from a single telecommuter are very small. The paper also presents the first analysis of data collected from the Ecommute program. Using two-and-one-half years of data, we look at telecommuting frequency, mode choice, and emissions reductions as well as at reporting behavior and dropout rates. Finally, we use the program's emissions reductions findings to calculate how much telecommuting would be needed to reach an annual volatile organic compounds emission reduction target in each city.

Suggested Citation

  • Margaret Walls & Peter Nelson & Elena Safirova, 2005. "Telecommuting and environmental policy - lessons from the Ecommute program," ERSA conference papers ersa05p801, European Regional Science Association.
  • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p801
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    File URL: https://www-sre.wu.ac.at/ersa/ersaconfs/ersa05/papers/801.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kruger, Joseph & Pizer, William A., 2004. "The EU Emissions Trading Directive: Opportunities and Potential Pitfalls," Discussion Papers 10679, Resources for the Future.
    2. Henderson, Dennis & Mohktarian, Patricia, 1996. "Impacts of Center-Based Telecommuting on Travel and Emissions: Analysis of the Puget Sound Demonstration Project," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt3tt6d46w, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    3. Burtraw, Dallas & Palmer, Karen L., 2003. "The Paparazzi Take a Look at a Living Legend: The SO2 Cap-and-Trade Program for Power Plants in the United States," Discussion Papers 10665, Resources for the Future.
    4. Nelson, Per-Kristian, 2004. "Emissions Trading with Telecommuting Credits: Regulatory Background and Institutional Barriers," RFF Working Paper Series dp-04-45, Resources for the Future.
    5. Safirova, Elena & Gillingham, Kenneth & Houde, Sébastien, 2007. "Measuring marginal congestion costs of urban transportation: Do networks matter?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 41(8), pages 734-749, October.
    6. Mokhtarian, Patricia L & Koenig, Brett E & Henderson, Dennis K, 1995. "The Travel and Emissions Impacts of Telecommuting for the State of California Telecommuting Pilot Project," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt6rw695kc, University of California Transportation Center.
    7. Henderson, Dennis K. & Koenig, Brett E. & Mokhtarian, Patricia L., 1996. "Using Travel Diary Data to Estimate the Emissions Impacts of Transportation Strategies: The Puget Sound Telecommuting Demonstration Project," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt0g01v83p, University of California Transportation Center.
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    9. Sangho Choo & Patricia Mokhtarian & Ilan Salomon, 2005. "Does telecommuting reduce vehicle-miles traveled? An aggregate time series analysis for the U.S," Transportation, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 37-64, January.
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    11. Nelson, Peter, 2004. "Emissions Trading with Telecommuting Credits: Regulatory Background and Institutional Barriers," Discussion Papers 10884, Resources for the Future.
    12. Walls, Margaret & Nelson, Peter, 2004. "Telecommuting and Emissions Reductions: Evaluating Results from the ecommute Program," Discussion Papers 10628, Resources for the Future.
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    Cited by:

    1. Andrew Hook & Victor Court & Benjamin K Sovacool & Steven Sorrell, 2020. "A Systematic Review of the Energy and Climate Impacts of Teleworking," Working Papers hal-03192905, HAL.
    2. O'Keefe, Paul & Caulfield, Brian & Brazil, William & White, Peter, 2016. "The impacts of telecommuting in Dublin," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 13-20.
    3. Pengyu Zhu & Liping Wang & Yanpeng Jiang & Jiangping Zhou, 2018. "Metropolitan size and the impacts of telecommuting on personal travel," Transportation, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 385-414, March.
    4. Gimenez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto & Velilla, Jorge, 2018. "Telework, the Timing of Work, and Instantaneous Well-Being: Evidence from Time Use Data," IZA Discussion Papers 11271, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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