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A Paradox of Telecommuting and Staggered Work Hours in the Bottleneck Model

2023/09/15 by Takara Sakai, Sakai, Takara, Takashi Akamatsu +3 · 2 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Engineering · Social Sciences · #Aviation Industry Analysis and Trends #FOS: Mathematics #Optimization and Control (math.OC) #Transportation Planning and Optimization #Transportation and Mobility Innovations

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2309.08352

openalex publication_date 2023/09/15 · openalex created_date 2023/09/19 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We study the long- and short-term effects of telecommuting (TLC), staggered work hours (SWH), and their combined scheme on peak-period congestion and location patterns. In order to enable a unified comparison of the schemes' long- and short-term effects, we develop a novel equilibrium analysis approach that consistently synthesizes the long-term equilibrium (location and percentage of telecommuting choice) and short-term equilibrium (preferred arrival time and departure time choice). By exploiting their special mathematical structures similar to optimal transport problems, we derive the closed-form solution to the long- and short-term equilibrium while explicitly considering their interaction. These closed-form solutions elucidate the discrepancies between the effects of each scheme and uncover a paradoxical finding: the introduction of SWH, in conjunction with TLC, may increase the total commuting costs compared to the scenario with only TLC, without yielding any improvement in worker utility.

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