Abstract Manager

The opportunity to meet our daily needs by performing activities virtually (e.g., work-from-home) and/or in-person (e.g., work-at-the-office) has changed the way we used to go around in our daily life. This has changed our travel demand and these changes may have occurred in temporal, spatial and modal dimensions. For example, telecommuters may be making more non-mandatory travels (e.g., visiting banks) near their home and in the off-peak hours of the day. These changes have impacts on traffic congestion, emissions, and health. Although tele-activities could be effective strategies to reduce travel-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, it is important for government agencies to understand changes in demand to measure their progress towards GHG targets, and offer low cost and sustainable travel options in an equitable way. Data to accurately quantify travel and tele-activities, their inter-relationship and consequent changes in travel demand is not commonly available. With this motivation, we have undertaken a longitudinal time use survey that includes a 24-hour activity log – i.e., gathering information on how individuals use their time virtually and in the physical space – both at home and outside. The survey also asked questions regarding vehicle ownership including electric vehicles and their charging behaviour, and socio demographic information. The first wave of this survey has been conducted from October - December of 2023 in the Okanagan and Metro Vancouver regions of British Columbia. The findings of this first wave of the survey will be discussed in this presentation.