Digitalisation Does Not Necessarily Reduce Traffic

Intrinsic need for mobility should not be overlooked

The pandemic led to considerable investments in digital infrastructure as well as a sharp increase in work-from-home agreements. As previous results indicate, German companies expect working from home to continue to be more widespread in the following years than it was before the pandemic. Whether or not a surge in working from home can reduce CO2 emissions in the transport sector in the long term, however, is unclear for several reasons. “Most people have an intrinsic need for mobility,” says Janna Axenbeck, researcher in the ZEW Research Unit “Digital Economy” and co-author of the study. “Many workers also leave the house when they are working from home. They run errands and make appointments for during their lunch breaks or after work.” Before the pandemic, these kinds of appointments or errands could often be combined with the commute to or from work. Moreover, the option of remote work has allowed employees to relocate further away from their workplace, which in turn can lead to an increase in commuting time when workers have to show up for work in person.

Potential of reducing traffic volume has not been exhausted

In the study, the ZEW team examined the relationship between digitalisation and mobility during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. “According to our study, digitalisation has the potential to reduce traffic, and in the height of the pandemic, this was actually utilised,” summarises ZEW economist and co-author Dr. Daniel Erdsiek. “Since the reversal of COVID-19 safety measures in March 2022, however, we do no longer observe a connection between digitalisation and mobility within German districts.” Therefore, the results of the study overall suggest that a possible increase in digitalisation does not necessarily result in long-term mobility reductions. “If there are no acute threats to public health as well as no governmental restrictions, the potential of digital technologies to reduce mobility is hardly exploited. Even if many employees may change mobility patterns while working from home, these behavioural changes do not necessarily result in less distance travelled,” says Janna Axenbeck. “Therefore, it’s more important to promote green, carbon-neutral mobility patterns than to hope that working from home will lead to less traffic.”

Study examines level of digitalisation and changes in movement patterns across 400 German regions

For the study, an innovative method of text analysis was employed that allows for measuring a company’s degree of digitalisation by means of its website. Using local company website data, the researchers estimated the average degree of digitalisation for each of the 400 German districts that were part of the study. The ZEW research team subsequently compared this measurement to changes in mobility, also at the level of German districts, which were observed via mobile network data. To be able to measure the relationship between digitalisation and changes in mobility as precisely as possible, only districts with very similar characteristics were compared, with the exception of the degree of digitalisation.