Social, mobility and energetic impacts of home-office on the employees of the School of Engineering
At a glance
- Project leader : Dr. Andrea Del Duce
- Deputy of project leader : Uros Tomic
- Project team : Patrick Walter Baumann, Prof. Dr. Andreas Heinzelmann, Raphael Hoerler, Andreas Schellenberg, Michael Stiebe
- Project status : completed
- Funding partner : Internal
- Contact person : Andrea Del Duce
Description
The project pursues the following three research questions:
1. What is the acceptance for home office in the current COVID-19
situation at the ZHAW School of Engineering (SoE) and how can
it be designed to make it more bearable for the SoE staff?
2. how have home office and other measures to combat COVID-19
changed our mobility and what can be used for its sustainable
transformation?
3. what are the effects of home office as one of the most important
COVID-19 measures on the energy consumption of households and of
the SoE?
The first research question will be answered through a survey among
ZHAW SoE employees which will explore, among other things, the
following aspects:
- How much home office can employees be expected to tolerate?
- How do employees perceive home office?
- What are the most important advantages of home office?
- What is the perception about the main obstacles to an efficient home office?
- Can home office positively influence the attitude towards
cycling?
The second research question will be answered on the basis of a
comprehensive meta-study. In particular, a focus on the links
between home office and sustainable mobility is investigated. For
this purpose, publicly available, partly already consolidated and
visualized tracking data will be analysed. In the course of the
Covid-19 pandemic, the mobility behaviour of the Swiss population
changed significantly. According to the latest User Mobility
Reports of the tech giants Apple and Google, a reduction in public
transport use of 47% to 59% and a reduction in car use of around
25% can be seen compared to the previous year. Together with the
visualizations uploaded weekly on the Mobis-Covid19 study website,
there is a good data foundation to visually and mathematically
depict a more subtle individual transport use and the current
mobility behaviour of the Swiss population.
The third research question quantifies the reduction of electrical
energy demand at the SoE caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and
compares it with the additional demand caused by home office
activities. The analysis builds on projects already carried out at
the IEFE Institute, with detailed measurements as well as the
methodical and algorithmic experiences for the derivation of
individual devices and activities from a central measurement. In
detail, the following steps are carried out:
- Evaluation and adjustment of existing consumption data of the SoE (electricity and water)
- Evaluation of measurements from individual households and canteen kitchens and extrapolation for the entire SoE
- Derivation of recommendations for the home office for the SoE based on the electricity and water consumption
- Trend prediction for the electrical energy and water
demand
All in all, this project and the simultaneous consideration of
social, mobility and energy-related aspects gives the SoE a deeper
insight into the effects of home office on employees and the
university, thus preparing for future opportunities and risks.