Travelling to Work

Travelling to Work Introduction Most adults spend a substantial part of their lives at work and the journey to and from work is as ubiquitous for adults as the journey to school is for children. For some adults travelling to and from work can take up a substantial portion of nonwork time and convenience to a work place (like being in an appropriate school catchment area) can be an important factor in determining where someone chooses to live. As outlined in Chapter 4, national-level data suggests that, like other aspects of everyday mobility, over the past century the journey to work has got both longer and more complex. Improved access to independent transport for many people has enabled them to commute over longer distances and to combine work trips with other activities such as shopping or taking children to school. It is also suggested that such trips are a major component of urban traffic congestion, with significant implications both for the urban environment and for the amount of time that people spend travelling (Whitelegg, 1992; 1997). It can also be suggested that in the twentieth century the relationship between commuting and residential migration has become more complex. Whereas in the nineteenth century most people lived within walking distance of their workplace, and if they changed their job to a new location they moved house, in the twentieth century commuters have more choice. A longer commute can be substituted for moving home with people choosing to stay in the same location for environmental or family reasons but commuting over a long distance on a daily, or sometimes weekly, basis (Green et al, 1999; Pooley, 2003).