Understanding the user characteristics for substituting trips by teleworking and online shopping

Abstract

This paper explores the user profile, spatial aspects, and mobility patterns affecting the adoption of teleworking and shopping online as a replacement for the working and shopping trip. The study is based on an EU-wide survey on mobility patterns and preferences with 26.500 respondents. The questionnaire combined socio-economic, mobility behaviour and the use of ICT in mobility-related issues, as well as teleworking and online shopping. The methodology used combines classical statistical inferences and a classification Machine Learning (ML) algorithm to find the most important factors affecting the typology of the users adopting these tools. The results suggest that while the new consumption patterns are high on average, the new working arrangements still have a margin to improve. Furthermore, there are significant differences among countries and between different socio-economic profiles. Online shopping was already prevalent, but teleworking was still limited (given that the survey was conducted in 2018, i.e., before the COVID-19 pandemic). The findings of this work can be useful for the analysis of policies to encourage the uptake of new technologies in transport and mobility. Also, they can be a good reference point for future studies on the ex-post analysis of the impacts of the pandemic on mobility.