Development and Application of TELECOM (Telecommuting Effects on Levels of Emission and Community Mobility) Framework

Abstract Description: Telecommuting gained significant traction in March 2020, when the COVID pandemic suddenly forced millions to work from home. Surveys show that many employees are interested in continuing to work remotely. To account for the ability of existing transportation infrastructure to serve future needs, Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) must account for workers’ increased preference for telecommuting in transportation planning. Models developed to predict frequency of telecommuting pre-pandemic will likely not apply post-pandemic, since they do not account for workers’ positive actual experiences with telecommuting during the pandemic. The overall goal of the study was to develop TELECOM (Telecommuting Effects on Levels of Emissions and COmmunity Mobility), a framework for MPOs to incorporate telecommuting into travel demand modeling (TDM) and emissions modeling and to understand community-level mobility and air quality impacts. Post-pandemic Telecommuting Expectation Models (TeEMs) were developed based on the analysis of survey responses from the national survey “COVID-19 and the Future Survey” that was a joint project of Arizona State University and the University of Illinois Chicago with support from the National Science Foundation. The survey was conducted in 3 parts and the data from third wave which was collected post vaccine rollout is used to predict the choice and frequency of telecommuting. Supervised machine learning algorithms were used to develop the TeEMs models, which use attributes that are available to the MPO’s from the census data. While the adoption model classifies the worker as telecommuter or commuter, the frequency model uses regression to predict the frequency at which a worker telecommutes.

TELECOM framework will be demonstrated using the TDM of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, to determine changes in the work trips and emissions. The differential impacts of telecommuting on minority and low-income populations will be examined. Project outcomes will improve TDM, planning for future transportation facilities, congestion and emission forecasting with post-pandemic telecommuting trends incorporated.