A U-shaped paradigm: understanding the impact of telecommuting on public transit ridership before and after the pandemic

This paper aims to quantify the impacts of telecommuting on transit use, with an intent to determine the extent to which transit use drops as telecommuting increases. Data for this analysis is derived from the 2019 and 2023 editions of the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) household travel survey, and a joint model of telecommuting and transit use frequency is estimated that captures the differential influence of variables between the two years. The findings revealed a sideways U-shaped relationship between telecommuting and transit use. Lower transit frequency was observed at both high and low levels of telecommuting, while higher transit frequency was associated with medium levels of telecommuting. This pattern became more pronounced in 2023, with a notable shift effect among non-telecommuters. Based on the treatment effects calculations, it was found that transitioning from medium-level (hybrid) telecommuting to non-telecommuting resulted in a 21 percent decrease in transit use in 2019, which deepened to a 35 percent decrease in 2023. Similarly, moving from hybrid to frequent telecommuting led to a 6 percent reduction in transit use in 2019, increasing to a 9 percent reduction in 2023. These findings suggest that the loss in transit ridership in the post-pandemic era is likely to persist and that compelling workers to return to the workplace full-time is unlikely to yield significant gains unless transit agencies find innovative ways to attract non-telecommuters (full commuters) back to transit. Instead, embracing a hybrid work modality, along with employer-provided incentives to promote transit use, may yield greater benefits.