§ Mr. MillerTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport what estimate he has made of the effects of teleworking on(a) current and (b) future transport needs. [91542]
§ Mr. JamiesonThe information is as follows:
(a) The National Travel Survey suggests that around 7 per cent. of all workers currently work from home at least once in a typical week. But about half of these are people whose paid job is only carried out at their home, and it is not clear how much of a role is played by communications technology.
Taking the 3 per cent. of workers who travel to work sometimes and work at home sometimes as being representative of teleworkers, it appears that they make roughly half the number of commuting journeys of non-teleworkers. But that they make around 5 per cent. more trips overall.
The Department will continue to monitor travel behaviour, and will analyse the data in more detail once a larger sample of responses has been accumulated.
(b) A number of the multi-modal studies being carried out have considered "soft" policies such as encouragement of teleworking as potential methods of reducing travel demand. The Secretary of State is aware of a number of research studies which have estimated the likely future impact of increased teleworking, but there is no clear overall picture which emerges. One research study, currently subject to peer review, suggests that teleworking might reduce car commuting by of the order of 5 per cent. by 2015, but there is considerable uncertainty involved in any such estimate.