Online working - what is the long term impact on travel?

Richard Logue

bk has raised what I consider to be an important question in terms of the long term future of public transport.

Does the increase in online working mean that the need to physically travel to a place of work reduces or disappears in time, and does internet shopping mean that the need to travel to a City or Town Centre reduce?

Opinions please!

Richard Logue

In my particular situation I can technically work from home for some of my own work, however I choose to work in an office in Central London as I find it more valuable to meet colleagues face to face.

Likewise I have other colleagues in Glasgow, Manchester and Belfast and while most of my interaction with them is either online or by phone, I believe that difficult issues are best dealt with face to face.

I will for instance be in Belfast for a meeting this week and I know we will make better progress being in a room together rather than by conference call.

On the other hand, at home we use online grocery deliveries for the weekly shop however there are times when I go out to buy food, especially if we are having friends over as I like to choose the food myself on these occasions.

Living in London we do go out for meals on occasion, and to the Cinema and Theatre.

So over all, I probably make less trips than in the past, but still travel to meet people when I believe face to face contact makes a difference. However for day to day contact then conference calls and internet are my standard way to keep in touch.

bk

I think it has a bigger impact on intercity travel then commute travelling

There are many if not most people continue to need to commute to work.

It has a bigger impact on intercity travel, which is normally to attend meetings, etc.

Working in IT for a global multinational I'm probably very much on the cutting edge of this technology. It is possible to get massive amounts of very difficult and technical work done remotely. I honestly think there is little work of this kind that can't be done remotely.

I think that there are people who simply aren't use to this type of working and want to stick to old ways or who simply want to continue to rack up their mileage.

Having said that if you work with people frequently, it is handy to meet them face to face at least once in a while ,maybe once a year, just to strengthen social bonds.

However I don't think there is any need for business people to be commuting up and down the length of the country once a week for meetings, etc.

Of course there will still be some business travel, for instance for sales pitches.

However I honestly believe these new technologies will significantly reduce the amount of intercity business travel.

Talking about local commuting. It is very useful if you can get even a small percentage of people to work from home or flexitime as it can have a very beneficial impact on congestion and the environment and it should be heavily promoted.

Richard Logue

Well my Intercity trips are indeed down from what they were say 10 years ago.

Back then I worked for a Software House specialising in Project Management tools and I had a company car. There was a complete incentive to rack up the road miles as the UK tax system back then gave progressive tax breaks on higher mileage.

I left all that to go freelance and since then I keep the driving to family trips and the train for solo, mostly business trips. I am over and back to Ireland every six weeks or so and usually travel between Derry/Donegal and Dublin with an occasional trip to Cork.

I probably take an Inter City rail trip about once a month nowadays, 10 years ago I was constantly on the road.

maninasia

I believe it will also have a big impact on daily commuting in the near future. There are a few trends colliding here.

- Higher transport costs
- Flexible working times and more round the clock working
- Improved telepresence technologies
- Big savings on office space rental and equipment

I know some offices have moved towards this already but the trend should accelerate now.

_Kaiser_

Well as I said in the other thread, I work for a large multinational with offices here in Dublin, the US, Asia and elsewhere but 99% of our staff work from their home office or indeed from home with any meetings, calls, training etc being conducted via email and Lync/Skype.

Times are harder in business and the days of generous mileage allowances, expense accounts and so on are gone for a lot of people plus the fact that most staff are familiar with many of these tools (IM, Skype etc) and practises in their own lives (eg: online shopping vs going to the supermarket) means that getting employee buy-in is increasingly easier.

While it's not possible for everyone to work like this, I'd expect to see an increase in the numbers that do as things like the above and working from home lead to happier, productive employees and better work/life balances so both sides win.

I think the net effect of this is going to be increased pressure on forms of transport like rail as high cost, awkwardness to get to/from the station, and longer journey times (vs the car) push potential customers to other solutions.

I do think we've done pretty much what was needed in terms of motorways (with the exception of a direct route to the Donegal area every major region is pretty much covered), so the focus and investment should shift to maintaining this network and improving the secondary/local routes (as kids still need to go to school, people will still go to church, visit friends and family etc) combined with expanding the broadband network and increasing its capacity - every city for example should have a UPC like BB service available to end users and business at reasonable cost. The era of eircom dominating the options outside the city needs to end for any real progress to happen on this front though.

maninasia

Online working will have as much or more impact on car travel as on rail.

The problem is that rail is already in a weak situation as the integration with subways and other forms of transport is not really there in Ireland so it further stops it reaching critical mass and the virtuous circle of demand increase and service and reach improvement that would come with that.

Online working could even be a plus for rail travel in many places (not in Ireland due to reasons above), as you can obviously stay connected and work on the train or in a coffeshop in the city centre when meeting clients etc.

Where I am I can't really work online on the train as the signal can be difficult to pick up due to it travelling at 280 Km/hr in and out of tunnels. Then again it only takes me an hour for every three or more on a regular train. Yeah I'm not in Ireland.

Finally Kaiser brought up a good point which reinforces the flexitime work model, it's actually convenient for globalised working teams (and therefore more and more employers as they are part of an international network) to work from home as you can take early morning or late night calls and no need for overtime, not that it's enjoyable or anything taking these calls!

maninasia

One other point..

Now we see online working cut back on the amount of internal company meetings.

What's the next step, cutting back face to face customer meetings.

Now I know face to face works the best and it's often about socialising too, but I can see some type of virtual customer meetings taking off next. And that COULD dramatically cut back work related travel.

For instance international exhibitions and local exhibitions, if somebody can get the virtual exhibition down pat that would have a huge impact. In the business we are in international travel related expenses are among the top budget concerns (but also a very important part of business generation so hard to pare back effectively until more online meeting options are available).

Maybe another SARS or influenza or Iceland volcano crisis could get the ball moving.