The Behavioral Impacts of Flexible Working Hours

Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, Technical Reference Centerhttps://doi.org/10.21949/15269191980PDFTech ReportOtt, MarianSlavin, HowardWard, DonaldJohn A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.)United States. Department of Transportation. Research and Special Programs Administration. Transportation Systems CenterUnited States. Department of Transportation. Urban Mass Transportation Administration. Office of Service and Methods DemonstrationUnited States. Department of Transportation. Urban Mass Transportation AdministrationUnited StatesBehaviorEconometric modelsFlexible hoursFuel injectionModal diversionPublic transitRidesharingSavingsSchedulingSocioeconomic factorsTransportation planningTransportation system managementTravel patternsTravel timeWork tripsSocial impactsHours of laborWorker conditionsDOT-TSC-UMTA-80-10;UMTA-MA-06-0049-79-12;PB80-191174This paper presents new results on the behavioral responses to flextime, a system of flexible working hours. Flextime is of particular interest as a transportation systems management strategy that has potentially significant impacts on work schedules, travel behavior, traffic congestion, and energy consumption. Although it has generally been established that flextime has been beneficial to both employers and workers, very little evidence on individuals' activity and travel responses exists. Consequently, this study, based on a flextime experiment at a large government research and development facility, was designed to permit a rigorous assessment of these behavioral impacts and their implications for transportation planning. Significant changes in work scheduling were observed with a majority of workers who shifted their average work arrival times by more than 15 min. Individuals also exhibited considerable daily variation in their work schedules. These findings suggest that workers derive significant benefits from the opportunity to vary work schedules. Preliminary econometric models indicate that work-scheduling responses to flextime are strongly influenced by socioeconomic and life-cycle characteristics, savings in travel time, and activity patterns. Flextime also had a large impact on the journey to work. Approximately 9 percent of the workers changes modes in response to flextime; for those who shifted mode, there were small net changes in favor of ridesharing and public transport. A majority of workers experienced savings in travel time due to flextime. These savings are estimated to have caused a 5.8 percent saving in fuel consumption for vehicles driven to work. These findings suggest that flextime may be an important strategy for reducing energy consumption.138