EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Residential Area-Based Offices (RABO) Project, known informally as the Neighborhood Telecenter Project, is a multi-year program underway at the Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis. This research program, sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and the California Department of Transportation, is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of telecommuting centers as an institutional work arrangement and as a transportation demand management strategy in California. The program has established a total of 15 telecenters, and evaluation data were collected from an additional 5 centers. This is a summary of the evaluation of impacts. A companion volume addresses the implementation and operation of the RABO telecenters.

This volume is an interim evaluation of telecommuting center use and its impacts on work performance, job satisfaction, and travel behavior. To that end, four survey instruments were developed to measure telecenter use and its effects at both RABO and non-RABO sites: an attitudinal survey, a travel diary, an attendance log, and an exit interview. The survey and diary were administered to participants once before and once after the start of telecommuting, the attendance log was used throughout the study period, and the interview was conducted with participants who left the program. The evaluation process provided data for analyses of travel impacts, telecommuter and manager attitudes, telecommuting retention, and telecommuting patterns. Data collected through June 30, 1995 were included in the analysis for this interim report; data from an additional year of operation will be incorporated into the final report which is due September 1997.

Overall, the interim experience with telecommuting centers has been positive, with some indicators that require continued monitoring. Employee reactions to center-based telecommuting have been favorable, and no adverse impacts on productivity and job satisfaction were measured. There may be a selection bias in these results as these data were obtained only for employees remaining in the program. However, reasons for leaving the program are discussed below. On average, telecenter users preferred to work from the regular workplace and the telecommuting center for approximately equal amounts. In particular, about 31% of the telecenter users also preferred to work at home for some part of the work week; however, according to current practice, home- and center-based telecommuting are seldom undertaken on the same day.

The transportation impacts of center-based telecommuting were complex. On the less desirable side, there was an increase in drive-alone trips and a decrease in trip chaining on telecommuting days. Most commuting to the telecenter took place by driving alone, despite efforts to locate centers sufficiently close to residential areas that walking and biking would be attractive commute modes. Interestingly, there was a small increase (of 0.5, significant at a = 0.02) in the number of commute trips made on telecommuting days, apparently due to telecommuters making trips home for lunch and returning to the center in the afternoon. On the positive side, however, telecommuting did not adversely affect commute mode choices on non-telecommuting days. And most importantly, the number of person-miles traveled (PMT) decreased by an average of nearly 74% on telecommuting days, while the total number of trips made remained constant.

To place the PMT reduction in the proper perspective, it is important to realize two things. First, the reduction represents a comparison between travel on non-telecommuting weekdays and telecommuting weekdays for center-based telecommuters. Thus, the overall impact on travel will be a function of the frequency of telecommuting. When travel indicators on telecommuting and non-telecommuting days were weighted by the average frequency with which each type of day occurs, an average reduction of 19.2% in total weekday miles traveled by telecenter users was found.

Second, the telecommuters in this sample lived farther from work, and hence had a much greater average non-telecommuting day PMT, than the non-telecommuting control group members (90.9 vs. 47.9 miles). Although on telecommuting days the telecommuters traveled less than the control group, in the aggregate (telecommuting and non-telecommuting days combined) they still traveled more. If, in the future, telecommuting continues to be adopted primarily by long-distance commuters, the per capita reductions in travel will be considerable, but this change will be achieved by a limited segment of the market. If, on the other hand, the adoption of telecommuting is more universal, the per capita reductions in travel will be smaller, albeit achieved by a wider segment of the market. In either case, the specific reductions measured in this study will not be representative of the impacts for the population as a whole.

On the organizational side, managers of telecenter users were generally supportive, with 93% having a positive attitude toward telecommuting in general, and 82% rating their level of satisfaction with center-based telecommuting as high or very high. (However, a selection bias must be noted since managers who were dissatisfied with telecommuting would be less likely to remain in the program long enough to complete an after survey). Opinions of upper management tended to be more neutral according to the immediate supervisors of telecommuters. The perceived advantages of telecommuting were those for which the benefit is difficult to quantify (customer service and productivity), while telecommuting is not perceived to offer advantages on "hard" money items, such as office space and parking costs. This will continue to make center-based telecommuting difficult to justify in purely economic terms. Indeed, while 39% of the manager respondents indicated that the organization was likely to offer center-based telecommuting to its staff, an equal proportion cited lowering the cost, being able to quantify the benefits, and increased manager acceptance as factors that needed to change before the organization would be likely to offer center-based telecommuting.

Managers continued to view the regular workplace as the primary work location for their employees, to be used for at least three days per week on average. This expectation of part-time telecommuting may act to inhibit the adoption of the center-based form, as there will be little opportunity for the organization to re-use the telecommuter's space in the regular workplace.

Average site occupancies ranged between 10 and 20% of available workspace days, with a generally upward trend. The 10 RABO sites with sufficient attendance log data to be included in this report had been open a minimum of 2.5 months and a maximum of 20 months (average 9.1 months) through June 1995. It will be important to examine how site occupancy changes with an additional year of operation (July 1995 to June 1996). For those who used the centers at least twice, telecommuting frequencies averaged 25% (1¼ days per week) at RABO sites and 17% at non-RABO sites.

Attrition at the telecenters was relatively high: 50% of all telecommuters quit within nine months of starting to use the center. Although little comparative data are available, this appears to be higher than for home-based programs. Results of exit interviews, conducted with the 24 participants who quit after this program began and who could be reached, suggest that primary reasons for quitting relate to changes in job circumstances (25%) and to supervisor's desires (21%) rather than to employee dissatisfaction with telecommuting. Nevertheless, the frequency and duration of telecommuting are crucial factors to consider in any forecast of levels and impacts of telecommuting.

In summary, while transportation and other impacts are unequivocally positive on net for those who telecommute on the days they are telecommuting and for the duration of their telecommuting experience, concerns remain about high attrition among telecenter users and about the perceived cost-effectiveness of center-based telecommuting to organizations.

The additional data that are being collected after June 1995 (the arbitrary cutoff date for this interim report) will be used to confirm or revise the findings presented here. In addition, the full data set from the RABO evaluation will allow certain studies that were restricted by the small sample sizes in the interim data set. Possible studies based on the attitudinal survey data include the direct comparison of the employee's and his or her manager's attitudes about work and telecommuting and the comparison of telecenter users and control group characteristics and attitudes. The data collected as part of the RABO evaluation will also allow the development of models of telecommuting preference and choice that can be used to identify key factors in the decision to telecommute and to predict the frequency of future telecenter use. Finally, travel diary data can be utilized in investigations of the impact of telecommuting centers on air quality and travel at the household level.

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