What is the use of telecommuting?

Telecommuting gained more ground in the United States in 1996 after "the Clean Air Act amendments were adopted with the expectation of reducing carbon dioxide and ground-level ozone levels by 25 percent". The act required companies with over 100 employees to encourage car pools, public transportation, shortened workweeks, and telecommuting. In 2004, an appropriations bill was enacted by Congress to encourage telecommuting for certain Federal agencies. The bill threatened to withhold money from agencies that failed to provide telecommuting options to all eligible employees. Telecommuting is seen as a solution to traffic congestion caused by single-car commuting, and the resulting urban air pollution and petroleum use. Initial investments in the network infrastructure and hardware are balanced by an increased productivity and overall greater well-being of telecommuting staff (more quality family time, less travel-related stress), which makes the arrangement attractive to companies, especially those who face large office overheads and other costs related to the need for a big central office (such as the need for extensive parking facilities). Even so, telecommuting has not been as widely adopted as expected. "The number of U.S. telecommuters falls somewhere between 9 million and 24 million—far short of the 55 million telecommuters that some forecasters predicted would be in place in the early 2000s. Although the majority of Fortune 1,000 firms offer telecommuting, more than half say that only between 1 percent and 5 percent of employees participate in such programs".