Britain's average daily commute is ONE HOUR AND 38 MINUTES

[thenorthern]

Just seen this is today's Daily Mail.

Britain's average daily commute is ONE HOUR AND 38 MINUTES as poll reveals we love listening to music on our journeys, dislike smelly passengers and think the transport is too expensive

• The average daily commute for workers in Britain is 1 hour and 38 minutes
• East Anglia reported the highest total average of 2 hours and 25 minutes
• 10% in the North East of England travel longer than four hours every day
• OnePoll survey also looked at habits, bugbears and prices of our travel

The average daily commute for workers in Britain is one hour and 38 minutes, a new poll has revealed.
Public transport app Moovit has released the results of a national commuting survey which was conducted by OnePoll and it paints a colourful and very distressing picture of our daily habits on the way to and from work.

The average time people spend commuting in the UK is 49 minutes each way, with those in East Anglia reporting the highest total average commute of two hours and 25 minutes.

Ten per cent of those surveyed in the North East of England commute for longer than four hours every day (242 minutes), closely followed by nine per cent in East Anglia.

People in Northern Ireland were almost half that time at just 68 minutes. The Welsh have the shortest average of 63 minutes, with Scotland at 95 minutes per day.

The clear majority of those undertaking 'extreme journeys', defined as a journey taking longer than 90 minutes one way, are aged between 35-54.

By far the most popular transport mode for commuting is the train (43 per cent) followed by the metro, underground and bus tied at 24 per cent, with six per cent reporting journeys featuring a combination of public transport.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...verage-daily-commute-ONE-HOUR-38-MINUTES.html

Its seems the Daily Mail readers from the Surrey commuter belt who think that all rail staff are overpaid arrogant people who dirty each trains before entering service have striked again.

It also seems that East Anglia commuters commute the longest which may explain why in a previous thread that some employers dislike people taking Greater Anglia.

My commute is 2 hours each way so I am in the extreme category.

 

[NSEFAN]

And if transport was cheaper, I wonder what sort of insane commutes people would do then?

 

[6Gman]

The article doesn't make sense!

(What's new? )

If 43% commute by train how can three other modes "tie" at 24%, plus 6% mixed mode? I make that 121%!

I smell a voodoo poll!

 

[1D53]

I do 1hr 45 each way and I wouldn't call it 'extreme'!

 

[asylumxl]

I do 1hr 45 each way and I wouldn't call it 'extreme'!

Where from? Do you have any subsidised travel?

I think for most people that's viewed as too far, even if just from a cost perspective.

 

[dviner]

Just seen this is today's Daily Mail.

Britain's average daily commute is ONE HOUR AND 38 MINUTES as poll reveals we love listening to music on our journeys, dislike smelly passengers and think the transport is too expensive.

The same poll revealed that rain is wet, and bears tend to do their business in the woods...

 

[Haydn1971]

I do 1hr 45 each way

Same here, SE Sheffield to Central Manchester

and I wouldn't call it 'extreme'!

No, I'd call my commute ridiculous and unnecessarily long considering the distance - thank goodness for occasional home working.

 

[Juniper Driver]

Just seen this is today's Daily Mail.



Its seems the Daily Mail readers from the Surrey commuter belt who think that all rail staff are overpaid arrogant people who dirty each trains before entering service have striked again.

The same passengers who have their feet all over the seats and leave the coaches like a pig sty full of vomit and god knows what else at other times?

Right about rail staff,perhaps I should kneel down and bow as they get into our trains.

 

[miami]

Where from? Do you have any subsidised travel?

I think for most people that's viewed as too far, even if just from a cost perspective.

Cost in the south east doesn't arm to actually with distance. A London season from Hastings is only 20% more than from Tonbridge despite being twice the distance. Southampton is 30% more than Tonbridge despite being 2.5 times the distance.

30 mins to a station on walk/bus, 30 mins on the train, 20 mins on the tube, 10 mins at the other end, and time for waiting for connections. 2 hours adds up easily even if you're only 30 miles away.

 

[Aldaniti]

I do 1hr 45 each way and I wouldn't call it 'extreme'!

Neither would I. When I was a lad, come rain or shine I did a half hour walk, train for almost an hour, followed by another half hour walk - and thought nothing of it. Fares were much better value in the 80's of course, I think my weekly season was £16. I never failed to get a seat, and a Class 31 or 37 was thrown in for nothing by those nice folk at British Rail.

 

[miami]

How much did you earn in a week for that £16 return? How much is the same ticket now?

 

[Aldaniti]

How much did you earn in a week for that £16 return? How much is the same ticket now?

1. Cost - of a product or service is the amount you spend.
2. Value - what you believe the product or service is worth.

Now, if you re-read the post, you might see a subtle attempt at a little light humour on an otherwise dismal November afternoon.... :roll:

 

[HarleyDavidson]

Perhaps if those running companies had any brains, they wouldn't pay for people to travel long distances and instead check whether they have fibre/cable or standard broadband and then give them a company computer so that they then do their work from home, thus saving many thousands of £'s on train fares.

I have fibre broadband and the a significant number of people in our location are on the system too, some have given up commuting as the fibre broadband system allows them to do Skype video calling etc, emailing, e-faxing etc from the comfort of home and they don't have the stress or expense of commuting.

Work it out, a laptop with the company software on could be a couple of grand a pop, you then compare it to paying £5k or more for an employee to commute to London or wherever and paying their expenses and it soon makes much more sense to give them a laptop and have them work from home using an internet connection, as you're not paying them to travel or expenses.

You also don't have them arriving fatigued from their daily commute either!

 

[NSEFAN]

Perhaps if those running companies had any brains, they wouldn't pay for people to travel long distances and instead check whether they have fibre/cable or standard broadband and then give them a company computer so that they then do their work from home, thus saving many thousands of £'s on train fares.

I have fibre broadband and the a significant number of people in our location are on the system too, some have given up commuting as the fibre broadband system allows them to do Skype video calling etc, emailing, e-faxing etc from the comfort of home and they don't have the stress or expense of commuting.

You can do those things with a relatively slow connection, yet many employers still want their employees at their desk. It would seem that the value of face-face communication is still higher than an email. Things are changing, but much slower than the rate of increase in passenger numbers on the trains.

Also, for some jobs (like mine where I work with CAD tools) it's a low latency connection that's needed, not necessarily high speed. Being physically closer to the server you're working on seems to help a lot!

 

[MichaelAMW]

I'd say that 49 minutes each way doesn't sound all that much. Personally, when I've been in jobs where the commute was reliably below half an hour each way I felt that it was essentially a trivial amount of time. The survey isn't particularly comprehensive as it omits (i) people earning less than the average wage, which is a lot given that the median is used for that data, and (ii) people who drive - I appreciate that there is a focus on public transport but it would be interesting to have a wider view of journey time. It would be interesting to have a regional breakdown, in particular to see average times for commuting into central London.

As for cost, it often strikes me that people don't appreciate that they get something for their money when they buy a ticket, particularly a season ticket. For a lot of journeys it's the cheapest and quickest method available, and someone else does the driving. The trouble for the "poor old railway" is that you just can't win: the best performance you can turn in is to be on time with no long-distance overcrowding, which probably ranks as acceptable or average in most travellers' eyes, with anything else being poor. There's no scope for being better than merely OK.

 

[miami]

You can do those things with a relatively slow connection, yet many employers still want their employees at their desk. It would seem that the value of face-face communication is still higher than an email. Things are changing, but much slower than the rate of increase in passenger numbers on the trains.

Also, for some jobs (like mine where I work with CAD tools) it's a low latency connection that's needed, not necessarily high speed. Being physically closer to the server you're working on seems to help a lot!

My latency from sofa in Altrincham to a work VM in London via a vpn, and on wifi to boot, is 15ms. That's 7ms more than the latency from a desktop in Manchester on a leased line. Not sure how latency-critical your application is.

The big saving for companies isn't being able to pay £6k a year less (including tax + ni) for someone without a £3500 season ticket, which is unlikely to materialise, it's not provisioning a desk and equipment in an office - saving another £6k a year.

But a lot of companies like people in the same office. I go into London about once a week to catch up with people, and most of the time there's little chat between people despite being in proximity - between pointless meetings and stuff, it's all done on IRC.

However the rail industry does not have a system to make it worthwhile to work 2 days a week from home -- the cost of 3 train tickets a week is often more than a monthly season ticket, so there's no financial incentive. If you want everyone in the office at the same time you can't save on desk space either, unless you can shift it across departments, 3 teams, 10 people each. You'd have 20 desks, on Monday team A and B are in, Tuesday A and C, wednesday B and C, thursday and friday is bookable.

 

[HarleyDavidson]

I think it's worth anyone having a look at the season ticket calculator on NRE.

http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/seasonticket/search

I'm sorry, but when you put in some of the destinations, such as Swindon, Bath, Southampton etc, I'd find it very hard to justify paying anyone some of the sums involved to travel in from such distances.

Make sure you're sitting down for some of the one's to London!

 

[HH]

The article doesn't make sense!

(What's new? )

If 43% commute by train how can three other modes "tie" at 24%, plus 6% mixed mode? I make that 121%!

I smell a voodoo poll!

Your sense of smell is off. Some people use more than one mode of travel. For instance, I use car, train and underground.

 

[Haydn1971]

Your sense of smell is off. Some people use more than one mode of travel. For instance, I use car, train and underground.

Some ? I'd suggest most people outside of London use at least two modes, plus some walking.

 

[HH]

Some ? I'd suggest most people outside of London use at least two modes, plus some walking.

Quite a lot only use one mode if you exclude walking (which from the numbers they must have). Maybe they excluded others as well.

 

[6Gman]

Your sense of smell is off. Some people use more than one mode of travel. For instance, I use car, train and underground.

I'm not a total idiot (probably best not to put that to a vote! ).

Presumably the people who use more than one mode are included in the 6% multi-mode. Which seems ridiculously low.

Are we really to believe that 24% use "Metro" (whatever that's supposed to mean - trams?) but only 6% use rail/underground, bus/rail or bus/metro?

They just don't look credible figures.

And they still add up to 121%!

 

[HH]

It seems likely that Metro/Underground is 24% and it's just badly written. Then it adds to 97% with the odd 3% being "Don't Knows".

 

[1D53]

Where from? Do you have any subsidised travel?

I think for most people that's viewed as too far, even if just from a cost perspective.

From a suburb of Leeds into Manchester. Walk, train, train, walk.

 

[6Gman]

It seems likely that Metro/Underground is 24% and it's just badly written. Then it adds to 97% with the odd 3% being "Don't Knows".

That would make sense.

A quick google search reveals that the pollster OnePoll specialises in PR Surveys i.e. surveys carried out on behalf of companies searching for publicity rather than enlightenment.

In this case the public transport app Moovit. Which, by paying for a survey, gets its name into high-selling newspapers on the editorial/news pages rather than advertising.

A survey, of course, depends for its validity on how representative its sample is.

 

[HH]

It's in the DM. It's bound to be rubbish.

 

[HarleyDavidson]

I don't know, it could be the The Grauniad, Metro or ES, they're all just as bad.

 

[Crossover]

I commute by car - as a general rule it is 45-50 minutes each way, but can be a little less or substantially more (record was 2 hr 41 min to do 23 miles) and by road, I would much rather my commute be shorter. If I was commuting by rail I would probably be OK with a little longer...I have had odd days on courses in Leeds, which equates to a 10 minute walk to the station and 30 mins on the train before a walk to wherever in Leeds...come the end of the day I have generally been a lot less drained than 45 minutes in the car each way and have been able to actually do something whilst travelling (sorting emails etc)
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Perhaps if those running companies had any brains, they wouldn't pay for people to travel long distances and instead check whether they have fibre/cable or standard broadband and then give them a company computer so that they then do their work from home, thus saving many thousands of £'s on train fares.

I have fibre broadband and the a significant number of people in our location are on the system too, some have given up commuting as the fibre broadband system allows them to do Skype video calling etc, emailing, e-faxing etc from the comfort of home and they don't have the stress or expense of commuting.

Work it out, a laptop with the company software on could be a couple of grand a pop, you then compare it to paying £5k or more for an employee to commute to London or wherever and paying their expenses and it soon makes much more sense to give them a laptop and have them work from home using an internet connection, as you're not paying them to travel or expenses.

You also don't have them arriving fatigued from their daily commute either!

Working from home is fine in moderation, but it isn't something I would want to do every day

 

[Hadders]

Lets consider a few things:

- commuters with a permanent place of work generally have to pay their own rail fares so there's no impact on company finances making people work in the office
- It's good to let people work from home but not everything can be done via skype. Sometimes you just have to meet face to face, interact with people and build relationships
- Not all jobs can be done on a laptop from home. Those that work in retail, health care, construction etc.
- If commuting by rail you need to take the whole door to door journey into account. For example my commute from Stevenage to London could be considered as 24 minutes each way (as that is how long the train takes to Kings Cross). But factor in the time between leaving the house and the train departing 9say 30 minutes), and leaving the train at Kings Cross and arriving at the office (probably another 30 minutes) then the door to door commute is nearer to 90 minutes each way.

 

[broadgage]

Whilst it is true that commuters with a fixed place of work almost always pay their own train fares, it is not entirely true to state that as a result there is no impact on company finances.

The cost of a reasonable commute is reflected in the going rate of salary paid for a job.
If regular working from home was the norm, then many prospective employees might accept a lower salary, which would clearly have a direct influence on company finances.

 

[Matt Taylor]

The same passengers who have their feet all over the seats and leave the coaches like a pig sty full of vomit and god knows what else at other times?

Right about rail staff,perhaps I should kneel down and bow as they get into our trains.

Three times in the last week I have taken a spotless ten car set out of the depot form the morning commute and within two hours it was full of rubbish with half empty coffee cups strewn on tables and the floor plus the detritus of various fruits left on the tray tables and over the heating vents etc, all this despite there being at least one bin next to almost every door.

Some of these people pay thousands to travel and yet behave like animals sometimes.