Review: State of teleactivities

The investigation of teleactivities and their impacts on travel behavior received much attention in the transportation literature. Toward further teleactivity research, this paper reviews previous research and analyzes the findings regarding the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in personal activity and travel patterns. This review of about 100 studies of teleactivities impacts maps reviewed studies according to whether the type of personal activity is mandatory, maintenance, or leisure, the nature of the research is conceptual or empirical and, if empirical, tabulates the ICT impact and the modeling approaches. Telecommuting, enabling mandatory personal activities, has been the most investigated teleactivity (by more than 50% of reviewed articles). Teleshopping and several other teleservices (e.g., telebanking), enabling maintenance personal activities, have received less attention in the literature. Teleleisure, enabling discretionary personal activities, has been the least studied. Of the four major direct impacts of ICT on travel, i.e., substitution, complementarity, modification, and neutrality, substitution has been the most prevalent impact for telecommuting, with complementarity most prevalent impact for teleshopping and teleleisure. More recent empirical have applied more advanced modeling approaches.