Survey of Telework Activities in Europe

Abstract

It was in the early 1970s when the concept of telework came about for the first time in the agglomeration area of Los Angeles. When the oil crisis hit many economies people became aware about the amount of fuel used for commuting. In 1973 Jack Nilles proposed working at home as a way of cutting fuel consumption and saving time.² His idea was to ban commuting to the data-highway and he called it telecommuting.³ Although it is often stated telecommuting would be the American equivalent for the European telework, Nilles himself defines telecommuting as a form of tele-working. He adds that it is difficult to distinguish between these two words because many languages do not have an accurate translation for the word ‘ltelecommuting’.⁴

This survey is embedded in the “COBIP” project. The COB1P project (“Telework co-ordination Services for co-operative Business Processes”) is located within the Telematics Application Programs of the European Commission (UR 4002 — SECTOR 6).