Telework/Workforce Flexibility to Reduce Congestion and Environmental Degradation?

Abstract

As a major initiative of telecommuting in Minnesota, eWorkPlace worked with 48 employers from different industries and over 4,000 of their employees to promote teleworking and flexible work scheduling and to reduce peak period commuting on congested roadways. The eWorkPlace project was administered by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT), with the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs (Humphrey School) managing the program. eWorkPlace provided assistance to employers regarding: setting up a telework project, formalizing telework policy and evaluating telework results for individual employers. This paper focuses on the evaluation of eWorkPlace results and tried to answer the question of whether teleworking realized its goal of reducing traveling and boosting productivity. Recurring online surveys with travel diary provided information on individual travel behavior and perceptions of teleworking, and it enabled a quantitatively intensive evaluation.