How much time do you spend commuting?

Obviously the time spent travelling is variable, but it’s interesting to see a new study on this type of mobility in Portugal, which estimates that one in every seven of the nation’s workers spends more than 90 minutes, a day commuting.

The figures come from Regus, the company that supplies work solutions on a global scale – and show that, in Portugal, 15 per cent of workers who travel to and from work everyday travel for more than an hour and a half.

Given the country’s poor record for “territorial planning” and the rank ineptitude of public transports, it’s no surprise that Portugal has a much higher average of people using private vehicles than other European countries. Indeed, 76 per cent of Portugal’s workers travel to and from work in cars.

The least popular means of transport is the bus – with just one per cent of those polled relying on buses in Portugal.

Another problem about travelling is the cost of daily journeys. Workers here spend an average of three per cent of their salary travelling to and from work.

Nonetheless, eight per cent of those polled by Regus spend 10 per cent-plus of their salary commuting, and 14 per cent said they spent between five and 10 per cent.

Paulo Dias, Regus’ CEO for the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa) commented: “It’s frustrating given that while traffic jams clog up towns and cities – particularly in developing countries, too many workers are playing their part in congesting roads during rush hours when they could be using their leisure time a great deal more productively – elsewhere!”

“To combat the negative effects of travelling to and from work on people’s health and moral, more-informed businesses are seeking solutions for places of work that allow their teams to work closer to home. Distance working and flexible timetables could constitute a necessary pause in weekly travelling – translating also into a reduction in maintenance costs, and use of office space”, he added, explaining that today’s technological advances made all this possible.

The study was administrated by independent marketing company Marketing UK and involved 15.000 workers being quizzed from all sizes and sorts of businesses in 75 countries.