What kinds of people expect to travel by car more, or less, for non-commute purposes in the post-pandemic era? A latent class approach

As restrictions eased coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, travel behavior began settling into a “new normal”, due in large measure to trends in internet-based activities. Growth in teleworking, grocery delivery, and online retail during the pandemic has changed how people travel. The relationships between teleworking, activity engagement, household characteristics, personal attitudes, and expectations toward travel as the pandemic wound down invite rigorous investigation. Importantly, changes in work and non-commute activity engagement may signal the need for significant policy considerations. While many studies have focused on the adoption of teleworking, with its direct impacts on commute travel, this research investigates non-commute travel, specifically by car. Using data collected from three North American regions in the summer of 2022 (N = 2,108), we develop a latent class choice model to examine the factors associated with workers’ expectations to decrease, keep the same, or increase non-commute travel by car “as the pandemic continues to wind down”. We find diverging impacts of explanatory variables on non-commute travel expectations between the two latent classes identified. Specifically, we find that teleworking, online and in-person activity frequency, residential location, and household characteristics have different, and nearly opposite, impacts on future non-commute travel when controlling for survey respondents’ attitudes toward travel.