Telecommuting and Telecommunications

Defining Telecommuting

There is no common definition of telecommuting (or teleworking, as termed in Europe). The term telecommuting was coined in 1976 and defined as “the partial or total substitution of telecommunications, with or without the assistance of computers, for the daily work trip.” Most researchers have tried to establish their own definitions of the concepts. Some of the common definitions, on a more general level, are as follows:

• The combination of flexiplace, flextime, and electronic communication
• Working at home or at an alternate location and communicating with the usual place of work using electronic or other means, instead of physically traveling to a more distant work site
• Remote supervision in combination with reduced commuting
• Teleworking defined as working at home or a location closer to home than the regular workplace, using information and communication technology (ICT) to support productivity and communication

Telecommuting was originally conceived as a full-time and home-based option, and presumed to be suitable only for information-related workers. It is now recognized that telecommuting does not need to be full-time, and that jobs need not be necessarily information-related to be telecommutable, though such jobs will remain primary targets for telecommuting.

Another form of telecommuting requires the worker to travel to a telecommuting center site, other than home, from which the employee works instead of traveling to a more a distant central work location. This includes running a home-based business as one's only job, moonlighting from home (for example, running a secondary home-based business in addition to holding another job), and/or working at nearby satellite work centers (local and neighborhood centers). An example of satellite centers could be those that Pacific Bell has established in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Impacts of Telecommuting

Potential beneficial transportation impacts of telecommuting include reduction in highway traffic congestion, reduced emission of pollutants, and savings in energy and petroleum consumption. The actual amount and impact of telecommuting in any particular region, however, will depend on particular travel demand measures in place and other aspects such as local conditions and local transportation and land use environment.

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