TELECOMMUTING AND RESIDENTIAL LOCATION: THEORY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR COMMUTE TRAVEL IN MONOCENTRIC METROPOLIS

A simple partial equilibrium model was used to estimate the long-term effect of telecommuting on work trip vehicle distance traveled and residential location for households located in a monocentric metropolitan area and for workers employed in the metropolitan center. Although based on very simple assumptions, the model illustrates some aspects of the complexity of the effects of telecommuting on residential location and commute travel. Although telecommuting reduces the number of work trips, the long-term effects of telecommuting are likely to include change in residential location farther from the workplace, diminishing the reduction in commute distance traveled per year from telecommuting. This effect of residential relocation is most pronounced for metropolitan areas with flatter spatial variation in land prices--the trend in most metropolitan areas in recent decades.