Commuters 'are more miserable'

Commuters who spend between an hour and 90 minutes travelling to work each morning suffer the most from their daily ordeal, a study has found.

When compared with people who work from home, commuters are on average less happy and satisfied with their lives, see less value in what they do, and are more anxious, the Office for National Statistics reported.

Misery was particularly acute amongst those whose one-way commute lasts between 61 and 90 minutes, while the methods of travel linked to the lowest levels of well-being were taxi and bus.

Even people who used more active means of transport were not immune, however. Cyclists who travelled for between 16 and 30 minutes, for example, were less happy and more anxious than those who travelled for 15 minutes or less using any other method of transport.

The ONS report was compiled using data from the Annual Population Survey which questioned 60,000 people in Britain, more than nine in ten of whom were commuters.

Each participant gave details of their regular journey to work and answered four questions on their general well-being on a scale of one to 10.

Each was asked to rate their levels of happiness and anxiety during the previous day, how satisfied they were with their lives, and to what extent they felt their daily activities were worthwhile.

Commuters scored slightly lower across all measures, with the effects varying depending on factors like method of transport and time spent travelling to work.

“The effects of commuting on personal well-being were greatest for anxiety and happiness, suggesting that commuting affects day to day emotions more than overall evaluations of satisfaction with life or the sense that daily activities are worthwhile,” the report said.

For example, non-commuters rated their happiness 0.19 points higher on a scale of one to 10 than commuters and their anxiety 0.18 points lower. But their life satisfaction was only 0.14 points higher on average, and their sense that their daily activities were worthwhile only 0.10 points higher.

Longer journeys were generally linked to greater misery, with each 10 minute increase in commuting time linked to an increase of 0.02 points out of 10 in life satisfaction, happiness and the sense their activities were worthwhile.

The report also found that people who travel by bus have lower levels of life satisfaction and sense of worth, and those who use the train are more anxious than those who travel by car.

“The results suggest that other factors such as higher income or better housing may not fully compensate the individual commuter for the negative effects associated with travelling to work,” the report said.

"The results show that life satisfaction, the sense that one’s activities are worthwhile and happiness all decreased with each successive minute of travel. Meanwhile, average anxiety levels increased with each additional minute of the commute."

It backed up previous studies which found that commuting was linked to lower levels of life satisfaction and to issues with mental health and well-being.

An exception was the small group of people whose daily journey to work lasted more than three hours, who were more satisfied and saw more value in their lives than any other group, including non-commuters.

However, the report noted that people with this commuting pattern were disproportionately likely to use unusual methods of travel such as boat or helicopter to travel to work.

Edmund King, president of the AA, said: “This research seems to back up the notion that many commuters hate the rat race to work no matter what the mode.”

Dr Daniel Newman, of Cardiff University's Sustainable Places Research Institute, added: “Previous studies have shown that commuting affects our physical health: commuters are less likely to take exercise or eat home cooked meals while being more likely to suffer from insomnia and joint pain. It makes sense that such bodily ailments should impact on mental health.”