Article
Version 1
Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
Teleworking Effect on Traffic and Air Pollution
Version 1
: Received: 26 May 2017 / Approved: 29 May 2017 / Online: 29 May 2017 (11:11:54 CEST)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Abstract
Traffic congestion is one of the foremost problems confronted by the urban and suburban tenants of today. Traffic congestion increases vehicle emissions and degrades air quality. Urban planners and policy makers have consequently been always investigating choices to alleviate traffic congestion and to enhance air quality. Teleworking is one option that has received significant consideration and has been studied in the recent past. The aim of the study is to explore the relationship between teleworking, air quality and traffic in Switzerland. The analysis relies on panel individual and household level data over the period 2002-2013. We examine five main air pollutants; the sulphur dioxide (SO2), the ground-level ozone (O3) the nitrogen dioxide (NO2), the carbon monoxide (CO) and the particulate matter less than 10 microns (PM10). Based on the fixed effects estimates, teleworking reduces traffic volume by 1.9 per cent. Furthermore, the reduction observed on air pollution is higher for NO2, CO and PM10 ranging between 3.3-3.7 per cent, followed by O3 at 2.3 per cent and SO2 at 2.1 per cent. According to instrumental variable (IV) approach and the two stage least squares (2SLS) method, the effect is higher ranging between 2.6-4.1 per cent. The respective reduction on traffic becomes 2.7 per cent. Overall, the main concluding remark of the study is that teleworking can be a promising tool for urban planning and development, focusing at the traffic volume reduction, and the air quality improvement. Additional policy implications of teleworking and its beneficial effects for the society are further discussed.
Keywords
Air Quality; Fixed Effects; Instrumental Variables; Panel Data; Teleworking; Traffic
Subject
Business, Economics and Management, Economics
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Comments (0)
We encourage comments and feedback from a broad range of readers. See criteria for comments and our Diversity statement.
Leave a public commentSend a private comment to the author(s)
* All users must log in before leaving a comment
