Abstract

۱٫ Introduction

۲٫ Methodology

۳٫ Teleworker characteristics

۴٫ Classification of teleworker types

۵٫ Discussion

۶٫ Conclusions and recommendations

Acknowledgements

Author contributions

References

Abstract

     With the arrival of COVID-19 in the Netherlands in Spring 2020 and the start of the “intelligent lockdown”, daily life changed drastically. The working population was urged to telework as much as possible. However, not everyone had a suitable job for teleworking or liked teleworking. From a mobility perspective, teleworking was considered a suitable means to alleviate travel. Even after the pandemic it can (continue to) reduce pressure on the mobility system during peak hours, thereby improving efficiency and level of service of transport services. Additionally, this could reduce transport externalities, such as emissions and unsafety. The structural impact from teleworking offers opportunities, but also challenges for the planning and operations of public transport. The aim of this study is to better understand teleworking during and after COVID-19 among train travellers, to support operators and authorities in their policy making and design. We study the telework behaviour, attitude towards teleworking, and future intentions through a longitudinal data collection. By applying a latent class cluster analysis, we identified six types of teleworkers, varying in their frequency of teleworking, attitude towards teleworking, intentions to the future, socio-demographics and employer policy. In terms of willingness-to-telework in the future, we distinguish three groups: the high willingness-to-telework group (71%), the low willingness-to-telework group (16%), and the least-impacted self-employed (12%). Those with high willingness are expected to have lasting changes in their travel patterns, where especially public transport is impacted.

Introduction

     COVID-19 first appeared in the Netherlands on the 27th of February 2020. On March 12th, the government drastically intervened and imposed an “intelligent lockdown” (Antonides and van Leeuwen, 2020). In this lockdown people were urged to stay at home as much as possible. This meant that among others schools were closed, people had to telework as much as possible (i.e. working from home), public transport operations were reduced (people were advised not to use public transport), and restaurants and bars were closed (de Haas et al., 2020). The large difference with lockdowns like imposed in e.g. France and Germany, is that people were still allowed to be outside and move around. All in all, these measures resulted in large changes in people’s daily life.

     For the working population, the intelligent lockdown resulted in a large adjustment: from working in office to teleworking as much as possible. Before the COVID-19 pandemic one in three employed people teleworked occasionally, with only 6% doing this almost full-time (Hamersma et al., 2020). With this, the Netherlands ranks second (after Sweden) in the European Union in terms of the share of employees that telework (Sostero et al., 2020). During the intelligent lockdown approximately 45–۵۶% of the working population teleworked, where many did this full-time (Hamersma et al., 2020). Not every job is equally suitable for teleworking, as some professions require interaction with people (e.g. cashiers in supermarket, nurses in hospitals, and plumbers in customer’s houses) (Sostero et al., 2020). In the Netherlands, the largest switch towards teleworking was found among the working population that is highly educated and/or commuted by public transport (Hamersma et al., 2020). Due to this switch towards teleworking and the advice of the government against using public transport, public transport use decreased significantly (Antonides and van Leeuwen, 2020).

Conclusions and recommendations

     This paper presents the findings of an investigation into teleworking during COVID-19. The sudden changes and adaptations that were required of the working population to telework as much as possible, resulted in a suboptimal situation for several people. In this study, longitudinal data of train travelling teleworkers in times of COVID-19 is used to investigate differences and similarities among the population in terms of attitude towards teleworking, frequency of teleworking and intentions related to teleworking after the pandemic has ended. We apply a latent class cluster analysis to identify six different types of teleworkers: ‘enthusiastic and always’, ‘positive and partially’, ‘neutral, new, and frequently’, ‘forced and done with’, and ‘indifferent and occasional’. These six classes differ largely from one another. We can classify these based on their willingness-to-telework: the high willingness-to-telework group (71% of the teleworking train passenger population), the low willingness-to-telework group (16%) and the self-employed (12%). The first group largely work for organisations that are prepared for teleworking and have a job, personality, and home situation that fits teleworking. This group also experienced the biggest impact on their travel patterns, and due to their intentions to telework more often after the pandemic, it will also affect their future travel patterns most.