Do ICT development and internet use decrease intra-regional work-related travel?

Technological advancements and the COVID-19 pandemic raised attention about the virtual substitutability of in-person interactions. To learn from the past twenty years' history before COVID, we examine intra-regional work-related trips in the US National Household Travel Surveys. The study finds heterogeneous and dynamic associations between internet usage and work-related travel behavior. First, the overall declining trends are prominent in work-related travel likelihood, particularly between 2009 and 2017, coinciding with the wide acceptance of virtual communication. Second, however, internet usage is often positively associated with the probability of work-related trips in the cross-sectional analysis. For instance, the travel likelihood of internet-savvy sales and service workers was consistently higher than their non-savvy counterparts in the same year. Third, the associations' magnitude and timing are heterogeneous across occupations, possibly because of the differences in the communication types. For example, internet usage positively correlated with sales and service workers' travel likelihood and travel volume per worker throughout the period. In contrast, it was negatively associated with the travel distance of professional and managerial workers in 2001 and their travel volume in 2001 and 2009, suggesting a virtual substitution of costly work-related travel. Although our conclusion is limited to intra-regional travel, the strong declining trend in travel likelihood is a promising element for a sustainable future because travel reduction remains desirable for climate justice, even in the post-pandemic era.