Speaker: Patricia L. Mokhtarian  Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil Environmental Engineering, University of California @ Davis

The potential of telecommunications to mitigate urban traffic congestion and improve air quality through reducing the need to travel has in recent years captured the attention of public planners and policy-makes. The application of telecommuting offers particular appeal since it addresses a number of other policy issues such as the "family friendly workplace and employment opportunities for mobility-limited sectors of the labor force. Policy statements supporting telecommuting have been issued by, the Federal government, nine or more state governments, and a variety of local governments.

One government study estimates that telecommuting in the 339 largest US cities (accounting for two-thirds of its population) could eliminate the need for 7,300 ~ 11,200 line-miles of freeways and major arterials by the year 2010. for an (undiscounted) cost savings of $13 - 20 billion. Another study estimates that nationwide telecommuting could result in 408-815 lives saved and 58,850 - 117,000 accidents avoided by the year 2002 due to reducing travel. The same study estimates travel time ravings by telecommuters at 826 million to 1.7 billion hours in 2002. Yet another study calculated the nationwide benefits of an expected 10-20% substitution of travel by telecommunications to include 1100 lives saved. 1.6 million accidents avoided (raving $3.9 billion), 3.1 billion hours of time saved. and about $600 million in infrastructure maintenance cost savings.

Are these expectations realistic? With members such as there under serious discussion, reliable information on the travel impacts of telecommunications would appear to be highly valuable to agencies at all levels of government. In this talk, a multiplicative model is proposed as a framework for examining the current knowledge in forecasting the demand for telecommuting and the resulting transportation impacts. A running Illustrative example (containing a base and a future case) is developed. using plausible values for each factor in the model. The base case suggests that 6.1% of the workforce may be currently telecommuting with 1.5% doing so on any given day eliminating at most I% of total household vehicle-miles traveled. Future reductions could be smaller as commute distances of telecommuters became more average and as the stimulation effect of telecommuting grows In any event it is likely that, due to counteracting forces the aggregate travel impacts will remain relatively flat into the future even if the amount of telecommuting Increases considerably.

Recent studies focus on modeling the individual decision to telecommute, implementing and evaluating the institutional viability and transportation effectiveness of telecommuting, and analyzing the travel and communications impacts of advanced telecommunications capabilities to residences and small businesses. Dr. Mokhtarian is currently directing a study of traveler's responses to congestion and is preparing to begin a new study of individual's attitudes toward mobility.

Dr. Patricia Mokhtarian is Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a Faculty Associate of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California. She has specialized in the study of travel behavior for nearly 20 years. A key research interest has been the impact of telecommunications technology on travel behavior. With additional interest in congestion-response behavior, attitudes toward mobility adoption of new transportation technologies, land use and transportation interactions and the transportation quality impacts of transportation demand management measures. She has directed or participated in more that a dozen projects related to these areas. involving extramural funding totaling about $4 million. She has authored or co-authored more than 90 refereed journal articles technical reports, and other publications.

Dr. Mokhtarian has presented her research on telecommuting and telecommunications planning in numerous classroom and professional society meeting settings throughout the United States and abroad She has given invited presentations in Delft the Netherlands, Mexico City, Mexico; Tokyo and Yokohama. Japan Singapore: and Sydney and Brisbane, Australia. Dr. Mokhtarian is 8180 the founding chair of both the national Telecommuting Advisory Council and the Committee on Telecommunications and Travel Behavior of the Transportation Research Board. Dr. Mokhtarian joined University of California @ Davis in 1990, after nine years in regional planning and consulting in Southern California. She obtained her Ph.D. in Operations research from Northwestern University in 1981, and an M.S. in OR from Northwestern in 1977. Her undergraduate degree (summa cum laude) is in Mathematics.