The future of telecommuting post COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 caused unprecedented changes in the daily lives of many people worldwide, with many working from home for the first time. This shift in working arrangement has the potential to have a lasting impact in future. This paper investigates longer-term impacts of COVID-19 on work-arrangements, specifically, individuals' preferences towards work-from-home post COVID-19. This study utilizes data from a stated preference component of a travel survey conducted in the Central Okanagan region of British Columbia. A random parameter ordered logit model is developed to accommodate the ordinal nature of the preference variable and capture unobserved heterogeneity. One of the key features of the study is to confirm the effects of residential choice in-terms of location characteristics and dwelling attributes on work-from-home preferences after the pandemic. For example, individuals' dwelling attributes such as larger sized dwelling, larger sized apartments are likely to have positive effect on frequent work-from-home. The model confirms significant heterogeneity, in relation to location characteristics such as commute distance and distance to urban center. For instance, initially, females were less likely to work-from-home. However, they showed significant heterogeneity with large standard deviation, specifically their preference was found to vary by residential location. For instance, females residing farther from urban centers prefer a higher frequency of work-from-home. Elasticity analysis suggests that part-time female workers, mid-age individuals, full-time workers with children, and full-time workers with longer commutes have a significantly higher probability to work-from-home every day after the pandemic. The findings of the study provide important insights which will assist in developing effective work-from-home strategies post-the-pandemic.

COVID-19 and Travel: How Our Out-of-home Travel Activity, In-home Activity, and Long-Distance Travel Have Changed.

COVID-19 has made unprecedented impacts on our daily life. This paper investigates individuals' immediate response to COVID-19, exploring out-of-home activities, in-home activities, and long-distance travel. Data for the Kelowna region of Canada comes from a web-based COVID-19 Survey for assessing Travel impact (COST). In addition to analyzing the survey, this research models adjustments in travel decisions by developing ordered logit models for in-home and out-of-home activities, and a binomial logit model for long-distance travel. Data analysis suggests a reduction of about 50% out-of-home activities/day/person during COVID-19 compared to the pre-pandemic period, with the only exception being picking up online orders which significantly increased in frequency. Individuals were engaged in longer duration of in-home activities; the average duration of teleworking, online shopping for groceries and other goods at-home was around 5.5 h/day/person, 32 min/day/person, and 26 min/day/person respectively. The out-of-home activity model results suggest that higher income, younger and middle aged individuals, and full-time workers are more likely to decrease their out-of-home activity; whereas, males, lower income groups, health care professionals, and picking up online orders are more likely to increase. The in-home activity model suggests that older and younger adults, higher and lower income, full-time workers, and highly educated individuals are most likely to increase their in-home activity frequency; in contrast, health care professionals are likely to decrease. Long-distance travel model results reveal that seniors, students, and airline travelers are more likely to reschedule; whereas, trips to visit friends and family are more likely to be cancelled.