What if working from home were treated as a commute in its own right? A new book chapter by UQ|UP members Dorina Pojani, Ying Lu, and Neil Sipe takes this question seriously and develops a method to understand its real economic impact. In this chapter, published in Advances in Transport Policy and Planning (edited by Jan Anne Annema at Delft University of Technology), the authors propose a straightforward accounting framework that tallies the costs and benefits of WFH across three groups: individuals, the private sector, and the public sector. The approach captures both tangible and—where possible—intangible effects by placing expenses and gains on opposite sides of a financial ledger. The authors applied this method to Brisbane during the Covid-19 period and the findings were striking: the overall benefits of WFH outweighed the costs by a factor of seven. Households and firms emerged as clear beneficiaries, while the public sector absorbed the greatest losses. As cities grapple with shifting travel patterns and evolving workplace norms, treating WFH as a mode of commuting opens new avenues for transport and urban policy analysis.

Read the full chapter here: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1mCzZ92DYAp5Ca

To cite:

Dorina Pojani, Ying Lu, Neil Sipe. 2025. Work From Home (WFH) as a novel commute mode: An account of costs and benefits. In Jan Anne Annema (ed.), Advances in Transport Policy and Planning, in press. Amsterdam: Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.atpp.2025.11.002