Modeling the Choice of Tele-work and its Effects on Travel Behaviour in Indian context

Information and communication technology (ICT) empowers people with virtual accessibility to a wide range of activities reducing physical travel and traffic congestion. Since 1990, accessibility to ICT technologies, along with a drop in internet tariffs and prices of various devices like computers and mobile phones, has brought about a transformation of the activity travel behaviour of Indian employees. This paper analyses the choice of tele-work and its effects on the travel behaviour in Indian context through the disaggregated data collected from Bangalore, considering all potentially influencing variables on tele-work. The study covered employees who work from home either for a few days in a week or occasionally. The analysis was carried out in two stages. In the first stage, a preliminary exploration of the data was carried out to assess the presence of the tele-work scenario in the Indian context with respect to the worker's individual-and household-related characteristics. Secondly, the frequency of tele-work was modelled with the conventional variables of socio-demographic and transport- related characteristics. This research will be continued to quantify the benefits of tele-work in terms of vehicle miles travelled, savings in time and fuel consumption. The ultimate aim would be to convey to the policy-makers the strategic advantage of adopting tele-work as an alternative traffic management scheme for Indian cities.