Teleworking as a Mobility Strategy for Mexico City

Abstract

Urban spatial mobility and its environmental impact have been attracting attention in academic circles, but have not yet fully permeated the urban public policy agenda. Proposals to reduce commuting (journeys to work) recommended in the relevant literature include controlling land use to cut the distance between home and the workplace, inducing modal shift, promoting concentration of service activities, time distributing work schedules, and teleworking (TW). The purpose of this article is to report some findings regarding the implementation of TW based on a survey of corporate employees that enter this work modality in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area. We provide insights as to the potential impact the adoption of TW might have on the city's commuting pattern, use of energy, and environmental pollution.

Acknowledgements

The following people participated in designing and analysing the results of the survey of telecommuters and the impact of teleworking: José Luis González, Adriana Larralde, Francisco Aguayo, David Mendoza (student of the Master's program in Economics at El Colegio de México), and Alfonso Mercado (professor-researcher at the same institution). Translated from Spanish by Susan Beth Kapilian ([email protected]). I would like to acknowledge the journal referees, whose thoughtful comments and suggestions strengthened and focused the reported findings.

Notes

1. According to IET (2010, 9–10), the rebound effects from telecommuting can include: urban sprawl, additional trips, change in vehicle use, additional use of energy, and extended network of friends, but as this report recommends: ‘Policy makers must not get overwhelmed by their task and use the rebound effect as an excuse to do nothing, There is a cost attached to doing nothing … and [that] is not an option’ (4).

2. They consider that telecommuting ‘ … has the potential to become much more pervasive in the future … ’ They refer to Matthews and Williams (2005), who estimated that approximately 40% of the US workforce comprises information workers who could in principle telecommute. The MCMA's economy is gradually shifting towards tertiary, knowledge-intensive sectors, a phenomenon which is increasing the use of ICTs and, therefore, the adoption potential of TW.

3. In a monocentric city, trips to the CBD are made due to the location there of upscale central (public and private) goods and services which, of course, seek the greatest possible accessibility. Nevertheless, at present, the structure of large cities is usually polycentric.

4. While the Valley of Mexico Metropolitan Area (VMMA) and the MCMA are not exactly the same, here we adopt the criteria of the latter because the survey included the urbanized area of the metropolis and did not take into account the trips in the functional region of the city in a broader territory that would rather correspond to the definition of the VMMA.

5. In the Sistema Automatizado de Información Censal (SAIC 5.0; literally, Automated System for Census Data), producer services are defined as the combination of the following sectors: 51 Information in mass media; 52 Financial and insurance services; 53 Services involving real estate and the rental of movable (personal) and intangible property; 54 Professional, scientific, and technical services: 55 Executive management of corporations and firms; and 56 Business support services, waste management, and environmental remediation services.

6. This sector includes economic activities devoted to buying, selling, or both of (non-transformed) intermediate consumption goods to be sold to other businessmen, distributors, manufacturers, and producers of goods and services.

Additional information

Funding

This paper is an outcome of a research project funded by the International Development Research Centre [IDRC Grant No. 105235-002].