Commuting between home and workplace: Trend towards longer commute distances

Abstract

"The majority of all employees in Germany get on their bike in the morning, use public transport or drive in a car to work, coming back home again in the evening. Occupational commuting makes a separation of living and working locations possible. On the other hand, large amounts of traffic, packed trains and difficulties in calculating times are the negative aspects. Hence commuting is often seen as time that is simply lost, or as stress. Although commuting is part of everyday life for millions of people in Germany, little is known about the development of individual commuting distances. By using the exact door-to-door distances travelled, new insights have been gained in respect to the occupational commuting of employees subject to social security contributions and marginal part-time employees in Germany. Here both the commuting movements within as well as between towns and regions can be taken into account, something that has not been possible with such precision up to now. The average distanced commuted by persons subject to social security contributions and by marginal part-time employees increased between 2000 and 2014 by 21 per cent from 8.7 km to 10.5 km. And this was a constant trend over the entire period." (Author's abstract, © Springer-Verlag)

Cite article

Dauth, W. & Haller, P. (2018): Berufliches Pendeln in Deutschland. In: Wirtschaftsdienst, Vol. 98, No. 8, p. 608-610. DOI:10.1007/s10273-018-2339-y