Hi!

I am looking for: 
- the average number of commuting hours per head (yearly, daily,
weekly... don't care)
- over the past few years (say a minimum of 3 years)
- in the developed world and/or the USA and/or Europe and/or Japan

Many thanks and good luck

From the  U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey:


Average Travel Time to Work (In Minutes)
United States  24.4  minutes ? 2002

See data for individual States here:
http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Products/Ranking/2002/R04T040.htm


Average Travel Time to Work (In Minutes)
United States  24.3  minutes ? 2001

See data for individual States here:
http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Products/Ranking/SS01/R04T040.htm


Average Travel Time to Work (In Minutes)
United States  24.4 minutes   - 2000

See data for individual States here:
http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Products/Ranking/C2SS/R04T040.htm

24.4 minutes

?The average time it takes to commute to work. New York City residents
spend an average of 38.4 minutes getting to work each day ? the
equivalent of one full week per year. ?Big Apple? residents endure the
longest commute time of any city with a population of 250,000 or more.
Nationally, the daily commute takes an hour or more for 7 percent of
workers.?
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/002264.html

 
?New York City residents spend an average of about one full week a
year getting to work ? the longest commute time in the nation among
large cities, according to a new ranking of American Community Survey
data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

New York City residents take an average of 38.4 minutes to get to work
each day ? more than five minutes longer than Chicagoans, who face a
commute of 32.7 minutes.?

Tha National average is 24.4 minutes.

U.S. - Census Bureau 
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/american_community_survey_acs/001695.html


?Information released by the Census Bureau shows that commuting times
are increasing across the country as more people are spending more
time alone in their car. Average commute times to work in the U.S.
increased an average of 3.1 minutes, from 22.4 to 25.5 minutes, from
1990-2000 according to Census numbers.?

The Loma Prietan
http://lomaprieta.sierraclub.org/lp0207_CommuteTime.html


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?British commuters have the longest journeys to work in Europe with
the average trip taking 45 minutes, according to a study. That is
almost twice as long as the commute faced by Italians and seven
minutes more than the European Union average, the RAC Foundation
said.?

European commutes :

Italy: 23 minutes 
Spain: 33 minutes 
France: 36 minutes 
EU average: 38 minutes 
Netherlands: 43 minutes 
Germany: 44 minutes 
UK: 45 minutes 

BBC News: July 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3085647.stm


UK- trends

?Over the past decade the National Travel Survey has recorded a 6%
increase in commuting (as measured by passenger km). The average
distance people travel to work has gone up 17% to 8.5 miles. Average
commuting times have risen slowly over the past 10 years but it is not
clear how much this is due to slower travelling speeds and how much to
people travelling further to work.?

RAC Foundation
http://www.racfoundation.org/our_research/Commutepaper.htm

Read the full text of this RAC Foundation report here.
http://www.racfoundation.org/our_research/Commutepres.pdf

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The Japanese spend more time commuting than either other East Asians,
Europeans and especially North Americans.

?Americans and Canadians seem to live closest to their working place
or school: One out of four North Americans commutes as little as ten
minutes or less in one way, and for two thirds it takes less than 30
minutes. Only 24% of North American commuters are underway for more
than 30 minutes and only 8% for more than one hour. Also a majority of
Europeans lives within 30 minutes of their working space or school.
The number of commuters traveling between 30 and 60 minutes, however,
is with 33% higher than in North America. On the other hand, very few
Europeans (6%) are commuting for more than one hour. Also, the
percentage of people walking to work or school is much lower in Japan
(7%) than in either East Asia (18%), North America (17%) and Europe
(15%).?

?How long do the Japanese commute? 

 About half of the Japanese respondents indicated that they need less
than 30 minutes to go to work/school. On the other hand, one fourth of
the respondents need more than one hour. In addition, the results show
that it takes students longer to commute than company workers: 34% of
students commute for over one hour while only 21% of company workers
travel that long.
Train riders are underway the longest with half of them traveling for
more than one hour. 60% of car drivers, on the other hand, need less
than 30 minutes to commute to work/school. Also commuters taking the
bus do not travel as long as train riders: for 70% of them it takes
less than an hour to commute one way. Almost 7% of people from the
countryside indicated to commute for over two hours per direction and
day. The same group makes up only 2% among people from cities.?
Japan Guide: October 2000 
http://www.japan-guide.com/topic/0011.html


?The average commuting distances for commuters whose destinations are
located in the urban centers are 26 km in Tokyo, 20 km in Chukyo, and
21 km in Kinki, and increasing. Also, the commuting hours to urban
centers are 68 minutes in Tokyo, 59 minutes in Chukyo, and 60 minutes
in Kinki, and can be longer in the Tokyo and Kinki areas.?
Japan Statistics
http://www.stat.go.jp/english/index/official/29.htm


Japan Studies 
?More than 70% commuted for one hour or more (one-way) in 1999, and
the length of time spent commuting has increased over the past 25
years. A little less than half the sample (42%) now commute for more
than one hour (one-way), implying that some three hours per day are
spent on getting to and from the office.?
Japan INC.
http://www.japaninc.net/article.php?articleID=205


Commuting Time of Japanese Workers and Students, 2000
                        Workers  (minutes)     Students (minutes)
Greater Tokyo           66.9                   73.0
Greater Nagoya          59.0                   72.6
Greater Osaka           61.2                   75.2
Note: One-way commuting time. 

Source: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Daitoshi kotsu
census (Major Cities Traffic Census), 2000
http://www.fpcj.jp/e/fandf/pdf/15.pdf



Commuting Time of the Main Wage Earner in Households, as of 1998 (minutes) 
                                                                 Median 
National                                 34.8 
Keihinyo Major Metropolitan Area         48.7 
Keihanshin Major Metropolitan Area       41.5 
Chukyo Major Metropolitan Area           32.1

Source:Housing and Land Survey of Japan
http://web-japan.org/stat/stats/09LAB51.html
 

Search criteria:

Average commute time
?Average commuting time
"Average commuting time ? by country
"Average commuting time" Germany Italy UK
Commute OR commuting time in Japan
Commute time by country

I hope you find this information useful!

Best regards,
Bobbie7

If selected employees were allowed to choose their own working hours,
most would succeed in shaving a minute or more off their commute time.
 Making it less costly to change from one home to one closer to work
would allow a few workers to cut commute time sharply ie when I was a
bachelor and not fussy about where I lived, I was often able to rent a
room within 10 minutes WALKING time of my workbench or time clock.
Zoning cities to be self sufficient in one kilometer blocks would
allow some people to rarely travel more than one kilometer from their
home. Police might collect a $2 fine from each person caught more than
2 kilometers from their home or work place without a good excuse. This
could halve the world consumption of gasoline, without being a serious
infrengement of human rights. Neil