Title: Working Differently, Moving Differently: Modeling the Impacts of Hybrid Work on Travel Behavior, Urban Activity, and Employer Policy
Abstract:
The rise of hybrid and remote work has fundamentally altered how, when, and where people travel. Downtown office occupancy remains around 50% of pre-pandemic levels and transit ridership in major U.S. cities has yet to fully recover. These persistent disruptions signal a structural transformation in how people organize their work and travel. This talk presents three interrelated studies examining the consequences of hybrid and telework adoption for travel behavior, urban activity, and employer policy. The first investigates how telework reshapes the duration, distance, and time-of-day of out-of-home non-work activities, revealing meaningful shifts in travel patterns beyond the traditional commute. The second explores the emergence of third places using Chicago as a case study, documenting how activity is redistributing across urban space. The third draws on a longitudinal employer survey to examine organizational perspectives on the future of work, including trends in remote work policy, the persistence of mid-week commuting peaks, and opinions of remote work.
Bio:
Nadim Hamad is a Ph.D. candidate in the Transportation Systems Analysis and Planning program within the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at Northwestern University. He earned his Master of Science degree in Transportation Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and his Bachelor of Engineering degree in Civil Engineering from the American University of Beirut, located in his hometown of Beirut, Lebanon. Nadim’s primary research interests include behavioral modeling, travel behavior, and the impacts of hybrid work and telework on urban mobility and activity patterns. Nadim is currently a Northwestern University Dissertation Year Fellow.
Andrea Cehaic
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