Average worker now spends 27 working days a year commuting, finds TUC

Commuters are now facing an average 58-minute daily journey – the equivalent of 27 working days a year, according to a TUC analysis. Getting to and from work now takes an extra 5 minutes a day compared with a decade ago – the equivalent of an extra 20 hours a year spent on congested roads and packed trains. The number of workers facing very long commuting times (over 2 hours) has gone up by 34 percent over the last 10 years, with 3,291,012 now facing very long journeys. Rail commuters face the longest journeys, taking an average of 2 hours and 12 minutes every day – an increase of 4 minutes on the last decade. Drivers spend 52 minutes on the road to work and back (up by 4 minutes), while bus commuters must set aside 39 minutes a day (up by 7 minutes). Cyclists (43 minutes) and walkers (30 minutes) have the quickest daily journeys.

Londoners take the longest to get to and from work: 1 hour and 21 minutes each day – up by 6 minutes in the last decade. Welsh workers have the shortest daily commute in Great Britain, at 49 minutes.Every English region now faces an average commute time of over 50 minutes a day.

The TUC blames growing commutes on three main factors:

• low government spending on transport infrastructure;
• employers not offering flexible and home working;
• real wages falling while property prices soar, making it hard to move closer to work.