MODELING THE CHOICE OF TELECOMMUTING FREQUENCY IN CALIFORNIA - AN EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS

This study explores the individual's choice of telecommuting frequency as a function of demographic, travel, work, and attitudinal factors. To do this, multinomial logit models are estimated using data collecte d in a recent survey of employees from three public agencies in Califo rnia. Separate models are estimated, one for data collected from the F ranchise Tax Board in Sacramento, one for data from the Public Utiliti es Commission in San Francisco, and one for data collected from employ ees of the City of San Diego. The results show that the most important variables in explaining the choice of frequency of telecommuting from home were the presence of small children in the household (irrespecti ve of respondent gender), the number of people in the household, gende r of respondent, number of vehicles in the household, whether responde nt recently changed departure time for personal reasons, degree of con trol over scheduling of different job tasks, supervisory status of res pondent, the ability to borrow a computer from work if necessary, and a family orientation. The empirical analysis also shows that model res ults are not transferable among the three organizations studied.