REL-TELEWORK - Relevance of Teleworking with regard to the actual demands for Austrian mobility

This project evaluates the possible contribution of an increase of telecommuting jobs and telecommuting centers for a reduction of traffic volume in consideration of the economic, energetic and socio-demographic effects so that it allows a classification of the quantitative effects of teleworking for conceptual design of prospective mobility structures. The tendency of the past years shows a constant rise of energy demand in the traffic sector with an average yearly growth rate of 5%. The goals defined by the European commission within the “climate package” for the boost of energy efficiency in the European Union need a paradigm shift in the transportation sector. A simple transformation in energy consumption based on a change in consumer awareness would not be enough to realise a reversal of the trend. System changes like a dislocation of working places per expansion of telecommuting could be an important component of this trend reversal. This project examines the dimension of this approach. Rising awareness for the claims of future mobility structures and of the ecologic (and the ensuing economic) effects of energy use yields a new importance of the telecommuting concept. The change from conventional working places to telecommuting working places has been realized in an insufficient way until today. For the analyses of the effects of telecommuting ex-ante and also ex-post analyses will be done. The study focuses on the quantification of the effects of additional dislocations of commuter working places to telecommuting centres on basis of the analysis of the realisable dislocation potentials of the commuter stream from the Mühlviertel-Linz. Beside theoretical analyses of the ecological and energetic rebound effects an analyses of the sociological and managerial effects, of constraints and profits for entrepreneurs and employees will be done as well. For this a conceptual design of a telecommuting centre in the region of Mühlviertel with comprehension of companies and public authorities in the city of Linz will be done. In addition, an ex-post analysis of an existing telecommuting system will be presented. The classification of effects of additional teleworkers desires an analysis of a reference scenario which pictures an expansion of the public transport system for a possible grading of the quantitative effects. As a consequence, the project analyses the relevance of telecommuting from different scientific views: traffic planning, environmental economics, macroeconomics, energy economics and sociology.