Telecommuting Change Guide Wishlist

[JoeJimFlood]

This discussion is for expressing desires for the Telecommuting Change scenario, including specifics on the scenario to test and what metrics to demonstrate the calculation of. As was scoped, readers will be guided on how to implement a return-to-office scenario. Discussion at the April 7 consortium meeting revolved around determining exactly which model component to test, and a continuation of said discussion is encouraged. Some proposed metrics to demonstrate the calculate of include:

• Shares of daily activity patterns
• VMT
• Number of transit trips

Please submit any comments before the April 21 consortium meeting.

[sumitbindra]

Tele-Commuting Scenario

Problem Statement

1. (TransLink preference) Comparing two post-pandemic scenarios with tele-commute frequency of 4 days vs 1-day working from home (WFH).

   • What is the impact of telecommuting on long-term decisions models like workplace location and vehicle ownership?
   • What is the impact on CDAP, total mandatory and nonmandatory trips, trip length and stop frequency?
   • How are the model results different between remote workers vs other workers?
   • How are the model results different between different income levels and worker occupations?
   • What behaviors are not being modeled, for example, changes in home location due to telecommuting? What are some ways ActivitySim users may incorporate other models outside of ActivitySim to address unmodeled behaviors?

2. Under a return-to-office mandate, how does peak period loading change on major corridors? Does the model show peak spreading reverting toward pre-pandemic patterns, and can you trace that back to time-of-day choice outputs?

Components Impacted (Edit based on modeling system for testing)

1. Mandatory Tour Generation – Work-from-home fundamentally affects whether a mandatory work tour is generated at all on a given day. The guide needs to walk through how telecommute frequency is represented — whether it's a pre-processor that suppresses work tours for certain person-days, or encoded in the tour generation submodel directly.

2. Usual Work Location Choice – Since workplace location is one of the first models to run, tele-commuting frequency would not impact workplace location. This could be useful to summarize and discuss.

3. Non-Mandatory Travel Substitution – When people don't make a work tour, they often substitute non-mandatory travel — errands, discretionary trips, etc. The guide should help modelers understand how ActivitySim handles this substitution and what to look for in the outputs to confirm it's behaving realistically.

4. Time of Day Redistribution – Fewer mandatory work tours doesn't just reduce VMT, it flattens the peak. The guide could walk through how to read time-of-day outputs to demonstrate peak spreading.

5. Disaggregate Validation – Telecommuting rates vary significantly by income, occupation, and industry. A good scenario should demonstrate how to segment outputs to confirm the model is responding appropriately across worker types, not just in aggregate.

Outputs / Summary

1. Total trips by purposes for workers
2. Workplace location (isn't impacted by tele-commuting but useful to summarize)
3. Peak spreading
4. Auto ownership
5. CDAP summary