Telecommuting and environmental policy - lessons from the Ecommute program

Telecommuting and Environmental Policy

numbers vary significantly across the cities, however. Denver has been active in registering companies
and encouraging employee participation since the program began, thus 134 people in Denver have been
in the program a year or more. Denver also continues to sign up new participants, as can been seen in
the other time period categories in the table. Virtually all participants in Los Angeles, on the other
hand, have been in less than 3 months. Sixty percent of employees in the D.C. area have been in 6
months or less.

Table 2. Length of Time Employees Have Been Enrolled in the ecommute

Program, by City

as of March 1, 2004

In Table 3, we show how often employees report to the system. On average, across all five cities,
employees fill out their commute logs 71% of the time. This means that they are failing to fill out the
logs 29% of the time. This non-reporting is highest in Houston, where employees fill out their logs just a
little over half the time, and is lowest in Los Angeles. These percentages are averages; there are some
employees who are more conscientious than others. One hundred people in the Teletrips database have
commute logs for every day that they have been in the system.¹⁵

Table 3. Employee Reporting Frequency in the ecommute Program, by City
as of March 1, 2004

Average Number of Days that Employees Fill Out a
Commute Log as a Percent of Days in the Program

It is impossible to know from the data why people are not filling out their commute logs. Even
if they are on vacation, they are meant to fill the log out, stating that they did not work on the particular
days in question. Likewise, if they worked but did not telecommute, they are still supposed to log their
commute activities. In fact, there are over 100 people in the system who report that they have never
telecommuted but who fill out their commute logs. Nonetheless, we have to acknowledge the
possibility that employees may be failing to report during the weeks that they do not telecommute,
biasing the telecommuting results from the program.

¹⁵ However, 52 of the 100 are people who have been in the system only 1 day.

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