Abstract
Can project developers reduce traffic congestions? The traffic congestion is largely caused by commuting. However, better transport hardly reduces congestion because the commuting growth is an external effect of dislocating offices and residential areas, which is amplified by policy support of real estate development. The social cost of this external effect exceeds 16 % of the annual average wage. Life cycle costs of three innovative office systems, which embrace office work and commuting, are compared to the present office system: concentration in mega offices and distribution in local offices and home offices. As shown in this chapter, these innovative office systems save 15–28 % of the present office costs, reduce congestions and improve environmental qualities. The savings are USD 3.5–8.5 billion per million emploees in the high income countries. Sensitivity analyses show the lower social costs of the local for nearly all urban conditions. Project developers can allocate funds into the ICT-based distributed offices, link offices with hospitality and suchlike, and policies induce this allocation when they abolish support of the wasteful infrastructure and internalise the external effects in the land prices for real estate development. The distributed office systems save USD 3.5–8.5 billion per million employees in the high income countries.
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Krozer, Y. (2016). Alternatives for Commuting. In: Theory and Practices on Innovating for Sustainable Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18636-8_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18636-8_8
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