This study analyzes retrospective data on telecommuting engagement and residential and job location changes over a ten-year period, from 218 employees (62 current telecommuters, 35 former telecommuters, and 121 people who had never telecommuted) of six California state government agencies that had actively participated in the well-known pilot program of 1988-90. We compare estimates of the total commute person-miles traveled of telecommuters and nontelecommuters, on a quarterly basis.Key findings include: (a) One-way commute distances are higher for telecommuters than for non-telecommuters, consistent with prior empirical evidence and with expectation. (b) Average telecommuting frequency declines over time. Several explanations are proposed, but cannot be properly tested with these data. (c) The first two findings notwithstanding, the average quarterly per-capita total commute distances are generally lower for telecommuters than for nontelecommuters, indicating that they telecommute often enough to more than compensate for their longer one-way commutes.We cannot say from these results whether the ability to telecommute is itself prompting individuals to move farther away, or whether telecommuting is simply more attractive to people who already live farther from work for other reasons. Even if the first case is true, however, and telecommuting is the "problem", it also appears to be the solution, i.e. enabling people to achieve a desired but more distant residential location without negative environmental impacts.1

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Commuting is popularly viewed as a stressful, costly, time-wasting experience from the individual perspective, with the attendant congestion imposing major social costs as well. However, several authors have noted that commuting can also offer benefits to the individual, serving as a valued transition between the home and work realms of personal life. Using survey data collected from about 1,300 commuting workers in three San Francisco Bay Area neighborhoods, empirical models are developed for four key variables measured for commute travel, namely: Objective Mobility, Subjective Mobility, Travel Liking, and Relative Desired Mobility. Explanatory variables include measures of general travel-related attitudes, personality traits, lifestyle priorities, and sociodemographic characteristics. Both descriptive statistics and analytical models indicate that commuting is not the unmitigated burden that it is widely perceived to be. About half of the sample were relatively satisfied with the amount they commute, with a small segment actually wanting to increase that amount. Both the psychological impact of commuting, and the amounts people want to commute relative to what they are doing now, are strongly influenced by their liking for commuting. An implication for policy is that some people may be more resistant than expected toward approaches intended to induce reductions in commuting (including, for example, telecommuting).

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