Tom Tiemann and Steve DeLoach, economics professors in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, published a study on recent trends in commuting patterns of American workers in the journal Transportation, Vol. 39:3, pp 521-37, 2012.
The paper, “Not driving alone? American Commuting in the Twenty-first Century,” uses daily time use data from the American Time Use Survey to investigate recent changes in workers’ decisions on how to commute to work. They find that since 2003, there has been a decrease in the proportion of workers who drive alone to work. This decline, almost entirely due to rising gasoline prices, is the first evidence of a reversal in the four-decade long trend of increasing numbers of single drivers.
Along with a steady increase in the proportion of workers using alternative modes to work, such as walking, biking, or taking public transportation, the data also suggests an increase in carpooling. Interestingly, however, the increase in carpooling is nearly entirely due to the increase in so-called “park-n-ride” arrangements where workers drive separately to meet at a pre-designated place from which they carpool together for the remainder of the journey. There has been little change in the number of carpools assembled by picking up each member at their home.