Firm Digitalisation as a Policy Lever for Reductions in Transportation?

Abstract

Promoting digitalisation may contribute to environmental policy in transportation as it potentially enables sustained decreases in travel. In this study, we quantify the extent to which firm digitalisation can be associated with changes in mobility during the Covid-19 crisis in Germany, both when strong restrictions were in place and after the restrictions were lifted. To this end, we employ a novel text-mining approach to measure digitalisation based on firm websites. We aggregate our firm digitalisation indicator at the district level and link it to changes in mobility between January 2020 and December 2022. Our results indicate that districts with a higher level of firm digitalisation experienced a stronger reduction in mobility during the first two years of the pandemic. However, in our preferred specification, mobility almost came back to pre-crisis levels after most restrictions were lifted, suggesting that lower mobility levels are not lasting. Our findings provide insights on the limitations and potentials of digitalisation as a lever for reducing physical travel.