Are slow internet connections limiting home working opportunities?

McArthur, D. P. and Hong, J. (2023) Are slow internet connections limiting home working opportunities? Travel Behaviour and Society, 33, 100629. (doi: 10.1016/j.tbs.2023.100629)

Abstract

The outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020 resulted in many governments imposing restrictions on people’s mobility and ordering workers to work from home where possible. As the pandemic has progressed, these restrictions have eased but many hope to maintain a higher frequency of working from home than they had before the pandemic. However, home working often requires a good internet connection. Those without good connections may have limited options for home working and may therefore have to travel to the office more often. In this paper, we examine whether people living in areas with faster internet connections are more likely to have increased their frequency of telecommuting compared to those in areas with slower connections. We also examine whether home working reduces overall travel demand, or whether there is a rebound effect. We find that faster connections are associated with an increase in the frequency of home working. As expected, these workers do not travel as much for work purposes. There is no evidence of a rebound effect for these workers.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Hong, Dr Jinhyun and Mcarthur, Dr David
• Authors: McArthur, D. P., and Hong, J.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences; College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Urban Studies
• Journal Name: Travel Behaviour and Society
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 2214-367X
• ISSN (Online): 2214-367X
• Published Online: 14 July 2023
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2023 The Author(s)
• First Published: First published in Travel Behaviour and Society 33:100629
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
304042		UBDC Centre Transition	Nick Bailey	Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)	ES/S007105/1	S&PS - Administration