Understanding employee travel behaviours in response to workplace relocation: a case study comparing commuting patterns between Subiaco and Perth, Western Australia

ABSTRACT

Our built environments offer distinct variables that impact behaviour – throughout the world, and equally within Western Australia. However, an in-depth analysis of extant literature indicates that influencing human behaviour is difficult in the absence of a ‘disruption’ event. Accordingly, this organization-level study examined the disruptive effects of relocating from a Subiaco office to a new office in Perth’s Central Business District on the commute habits of its built-environment professional employees. The relocation occurred during a ‘non-lockdown’ period between July and August 2021 (southern hemisphere winter). The study sought to determine if an office relocation constituted a sufficient ‘disruption’ to affect employees’ commute behaviours, and in contrast to state and national figures, to quantify how micro-communities revise and develop commuting habits in response to changing circumstances. It was expected that the shift would increase public transportation reliance, lengthen commute times, and increase expenditure. The study applied a two-part purposive survey using frequencies and a one-sample Chi-Square test at the 95% confidence level. The distance between the two locations and projected trip times through various modes was calculated using Google Maps. The findings indicate that both Subiaco and Perth had higher public transportation utilisation when compared to state and national numbers as a multi-modal means of commuting. Furthermore, car reliance decreased and general satisfaction with commuting choices increased for the Perth study. This suggests that multi-modal public transportation commute alternatives provided a cost-effective and efficient, alternative. The study identified social value and preference propositions beyond return-on-investment for improving existing idle city assets. Lastly, the study contributes to evolving contemporary cross-disciplinary discourse and body of knowledge in human geography, urban community development, and transportation, and sought to concomitantly determine the potential to further extend this research through concurrent collection of employee daily step count data.

KEYWORDS:

• Commuting habits
• travel behaviours
• workplace relocation
• carbon emissions
• sustainable development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. This research acknowledges that COVID-19 has caused inconsistencies in periods of instability at state and local levels, and this has initiated disparate influences on established attitudes towards public modes of transportation.

2. Step count was conducted as a pilot study to determine the potential for future research on the effect that a change in office location could have on total employee step count, including examining spatial relationships and any associated influence on movement, and researching increased mobility and perceived/actual wellbeing.

3. Single-method travel figures exclude ‘Worked from home,’ ‘Not stated,’ ‘Did not go to work,’ and all multi-response categories (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017).

4. Despite the significance of the study for land use planning, it is considered an early stage of land-use adjustment because of the COVID pandemic. To inform planning policies, the issues of workplace relocation requires a further comprehensive review that considers public transit and work-from-home options.

5. Comparing WA commute behaviours against other places in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic would make for an interesting future study to better understand comparative public transportation use, however, this is not the main thrust of this research.

6. Qualifying months excludes work from home and any ‘lockdown’ periods, which are excluded from the study.

7. Figures for Australian and Perth averages is sourced from ABS, 2017.

8. This excluded the car as part of a multi-modal commute journey.