Primary and secondary effects of teleworking policies on household energy consumption

In the transportation literature, the effects of teleworking have been studied primarily in terms of their effect on changing activity-travel patterns. Teleworking has been positioned as a policy to reduce the number of miles travelled and the number of trips. Potentially therefore, teleworking may contribute to a reduction of congestion and emissions. More recently, the discussion on sustainable development in the transportation research literature has been widened to include energy consumption. Increasing energy prices and expected energy shortages are believed to have an impact on travel behaviour. Consequently, the evaluation of teleworking policies should include this wider policy frame of reference. By estimating energy consumption as a function of characteristics of the activity-location, energy consumption related to daily activity-travel patterns can be simulated, at least to some level of detail. The primary and secondly effects of various policy scenarios, including teleworking, can then be evaluated by using an activity-based model to predict household response to the policy of interest. The paper reports the results of a study that was undertaken to examine the feasibility of this approach.