The rise of the super-commuter

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From The Guardian by Liam Booth-Smith

Commuting is the worst part of most people’s day. That was certainly the case for me when I was travelling 45 minutes, there and back, across London each day. On packed trains I would close my eyes and wish I was somewhere else. But then I swapped that for a four-and-a-half-hour round trip between Stafford and the capital, and I suddenly began to love my commute.

As someone who travels more than 90 miles to work I’m part of a rising phenomenon of super-commuters. The number of workers who commute daily for two hours or more has increased by a third in five years. As workers are priced out of inner cities, London in particular, those looking for the security of owning their home have had to look further afield.

...

Posted here in "Across the West" as - though the article refers to a West Coast main line journey, it's equally applicable to the Great Western main line,  and north Cotswold and Berks and Hants services too.

Writing personally, I find that time on a train isn't enforced / wasted time as time driving a car is.  Even in my school days, the morning commute was an opportunity to do the homework I should have done the night before, and the fifteen minutes or so taken showed (I'm afraid) a lack of respect for the suggested time to be taken. My handwriting was notoriously bad [rather as my spelling is today!].   The afternoon return home was a brief interval of downtime to relax and recharge batteries ready for whatever excitement the evening might bring.  And the train was a uniquely suitable for these tasks; I found (and still find) the lurching of a bus made / makes it pretty darned hard to work without feeling queazy.

These days, I enjoy (genuinely enjoy) occasional appointments in London as day trips. There's a friendly camaraderie on a local train connecting to the main line into Paddington,  which I join early enough to get a seat - and on that train I'm usually able to be in my own 'world' where work can be done and the day prepared for. The return is far from as pleasant, as I can end up standing most of the way which is the last thing I want to be doing bearing in mind I'm pretty tired by that time.  There's no option of popping into the Fig Leaf and Firkin (or whatever it's called) and catching a later train as that would mean an extra taxi fare since the local train ceases to run in the early evening (and the bus, now, even earlier - that was a retrograde step!), or calling up for a lift from Lisa - neither of us hugely keen on that.

I look forward to being able to get to London earlier in the future; the final SLC^▸ (Service Level Commitment) of this franchise has a new early train from Westbury up to Swindon and experience of an early train prior to 2006 showed us this is relatively popular.  And also from those days, a later service back would be appreciated by the super-commuter(s) as it was then.  There seems to be a general dip in train loadings mid evening (when our current last service runs) with a minor increase / bubble later in the evening,  and as our current final train - supposedly the quietest of the day - already carries more than the average we targeted across all trains for this 2016 year, the case for a further round trip rather than parking up in the sidings at Westbury is a good one.

Edit to fix title - just when I let autocorrect take over to help me it makes as b**lsup for me.  Thanks for the p.m. to let me know!

[Noggin]

Interesting term (and article).

I don't think it's a particularly new phenomenon, when the ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line) was electrified there were stories of people who moved to Doncaster and Retford, there was supposedly at least one daily regular on Easyjet's Glasgow to London flights when they started, doctors who lived in northern France and took the Eurostar to work in London, and friends who lived in Spain told stories of how people would commute the 190km from Vailladolid to Madrid when the AVE opened and did the journey in an hour, for much less than I was paying for a Reading to London season ticket.

What is different of course is that modern technology means that time on a train can be used for work, and indeed many employers don't require that you spend 9 to 5 in a designated office.  I live in Bristol and I know quite a few people whose place of work is technically London, but who just go into the office a few days a week and either work from home, have a desk in a shared office and the rest of the time are on the road with clients or at other company offices. It seems to be quite encouraged, to the extent of train fares and other expenses being paid by the company.

All bodes well for HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)), perhaps the Peak District will be the new Cotswolds?

[eightf48544]

All bodes well for HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)), perhaps the Peak District will be the new Cotswolds?


But where would they catch HS2?

[chrisr_75]

What is different of course is that modern technology means that time on a train can be used for work, and indeed many employers don't require that you spend 9 to 5 in a designated office.  I live in Bristol and I know quite a few people whose place of work is technically London, but who just go into the office a few days a week and either work from home, have a desk in a shared office and the rest of the time are on the road with clients or at other company offices. It seems to be quite encouraged, to the extent of train fares and other expenses being paid by the company.

Who are these employers?! Certainly not mine (oil industry). For a supposedly hi-tech industry, certain aspects of it (particularly occupying an allocated desk during your designated working hours) are well and truly stuck in the dark ages!

I'm only slightly envious of such flexible working arrangements!

[Bmblbzzz]

Supposedly the Italians are the European champion super-commuters, because who would choose to live close to work when he (or she but it seems to be more often he) could live in his home town with mama's cooking and his childhood friends?

The flipside of this is, of course, the (ex- or would-be) locals who then have to commute in the other direction because they can no longer afford to live there, and all the other changes – good and bad – summed up in the trendy term "gentrification".

[Thatcham Crossing]

Some of the best "super-commuter" stories come from pilots, especially long-haul ones.

It's not unusual for them to live in a different Country to their "base" and to commute to and from it by air.

I know of a gent who flies for BA^» (British Airways - about). He flies himself (in his own aircraft) from Guernsey to an airfield not far from me, then takes the short land journey to Heathrow to his flying job (which may then take him away "down route" for several days).

No doubt the tax he saves living in the CI at least partly makes up for the expense of the commute!

As for me, I have a mode of work and circumstances quite like that described by Noggin (and have to admit the flexibility is great), although I don't live in Bristol and the "base" office is not in London (although I find myself there reasonably often).

[Oxonhutch]

Who are these employers?! Certainly not mine (oil industry).

'Tis my line too Chris and unfortunately our oil industry is dominated by American work attitudes that do not reflect modern working practices.  I worked State-side for five years and have personal experience. I have managed to negotiate, some years past, one day per week working from home in an identical office setup (twin-screen workstation - 3 second commute out the back door) except it is quieter and has much higher internet speeds - no IT baggage.

But it is always under threat - especially in these troubled (oil industry) times when conservative attitudes can be seen to be advancing the Corporate tune!

[chrisr_75]

Who are these employers?! Certainly not mine (oil industry).

'Tis my line too Chris and unfortunately our oil industry is dominated by American work attitudes that do not reflect modern working practices.  I worked State-side for five years and have personal experience. I have managed to negotiate, some years past, one day per week working from home in an identical office setup (twin-screen workstation - 3 second commute out the back door) except it is quieter and has much higher internet speeds - no IT baggage.

But it is always under threat - especially in these troubled (oil industry) times when conservative attitudes can be seen to be advancing the Corporate tune!

It is amazing how backwards some businesses can be when they are so forwards in other respects!

Hang on to it as long as you can - our leaders appear inclined to snatch anything away that they can at the moment! It certainly has been a pretty dire couple of years and has changed my overall opinion (very much for the worse, particularly in the way the industry is lead), this being the first significant downturn I've been involved in.

[Noggin]

What is different of course is that modern technology means that time on a train can be used for work, and indeed many employers don't require that you spend 9 to 5 in a designated office.  I live in Bristol and I know quite a few people whose place of work is technically London, but who just go into the office a few days a week and either work from home, have a desk in a shared office and the rest of the time are on the road with clients or at other company offices. It seems to be quite encouraged, to the extent of train fares and other expenses being paid by the company.

Who are these employers?! Certainly not mine (oil industry). For a supposedly hi-tech industry, certain aspects of it (particularly occupying an allocated desk during your designated working hours) are well and truly stuck in the dark ages!

I'm only slightly envious of such flexible working arrangements!

Of the people who I know what they do, one works in legal publishing, one for a charity, one for an HR^▸ (Human Resources) software company.

I'm a IT freelancer but spend half my week working from Bristol for a Belgian company, my counterpart is based in Warsaw, my line manager is based in Paris, my boss is based in Avignon, but actually lives in Berkshire and spends most of his time travelling around Europe.   

Used to know an oil industry geologist who managed to wrangle working from Verbier in the Swiss Alps for a company based in London when he wasn't out in the field doing surveys or actually needed to be in the office for meetings. His reasoning to his boss was:
1) You want to keep me as an employee, right?
2) You'd be fine if I worked from home in London, right?
3) So logically, so long as I can be in the office when required, I can be anywhere with good broadband, right?
4) Oh yes, and if you're paying for flights home from Africa/US/the Gulf, presumably you don't mind my tickets being to Geneva instead of Heathrow.

Jammy git got away with it too, but I suspect only because he was in the stronger position

[grahame]

Surely there's a difference here between the "Super Commuter" who's in his office base with sufficient frequency to justify a season ticket for his long commute, and the person with a job which only requires occasional attendance in his office?

-- GrahamE, posting from Los Angeles, California where I'm working from my Sister-in-law's this week.

[Sixty3Closure]

I laughed at their definition of a super commute as over two hours a day. I don't know anyone in my office who has a commute less than that. I'm only about 40 miles from my office and generally spend 3 hours a day at least travelling. Maybe its a lot better outside the South East although when I worked in Glasgow it was a similar time again.

[WelshBluebird]

I laughed at their definition of a super commute as over two hours a day. I don't know anyone in my office who has a commute less than that. I'm only about 40 miles from my office and generally spend 3 hours a day at least travelling. Maybe its a lot better outside the South East although when I worked in Glasgow it was a similar time again.

The article talks about 2 hours each way though, so 4 hours a day travelling.

[Sixty3Closure]

Ah Thanks - I managed to miss the headline. The article itself says " The number of workers who commute daily for two hours or more has increased by a third in five years." Still it is The Grauniad and 2 hours each way only removes a couple of my colleagues from the criteria and I probably manage that at least once a week.