The Pain of Commuting

IBM 2011 Global Commuter Pain Survey (9 page pdf, IBM, Sep. 8, 2011)

Also discussed here: IBM Global Commuter Pain Survey: Traffic Congestion Down, Pain Way Up (PRNewswire, Sep. 8, 2011)

And here: Stressed commuters turning to public transit, tech (Martin LaMonica, cnet News, Sep. 8, 2011)
In many cities, vehicle emissions is a major contributer to urban air pollution and the choices commuters make in their choice of transportation mode has a major impact on the resulting air quality. Today we review the 4^th annual world survey of commuting “pain” by IBM and this reveals differences in the pain as a result of the mode chosen for commuting and the degree of technology used to speed up traffic.



Key Quotes:

“attempts to gauge drivers’ perception of how traffic affects them based on factors such as stress, anger, health, and performance at work or school”

“Mexico City showed up as the ‘most painful’ city for commuting, while Montreal, London, and Chicago came out the ‘best’”

“Our best hope lies in making the most of the roads we have- primarily through the use of technology to improve their performance and efficiency. Stockholm, the city that by a number of measures came out the best in this survey, has instituted a congestion charging system. Just a month after the system began operating, morning commute time was down by an average of 50%.”

“Cities are using myriad sensors - embedded in roadways or in taxis and buses – to gather more information about traffic and, through capabilities like analytics, a combination of advanced mathematics and massive computing power, are growing their capacity to predict and avoid congestion”

“Across cities, driving is the predominant way to get to work or school (55% drive a car, 5% a motorbike, and 5% carpool on a worldwide average), with public transportation ranking a distant second (13% use the bus, 7% a train)”

“For all of the cities, the average one-way length of the commute is 12.8 miles, taking about 33 minutes – meaning they are travelling a little over 23 miles per hour”

Related articles

• The Worst Commutes Around The World (fastcompany.com)
• Stressed commuters turning to public transit, tech (news.cnet.com)
• Global comparison of commuter pain (holykaw.alltop.com)
• Cities with the Worse Commute in the World (neatorama.com)
• IBM global commuter survey: Traffic's better, but drivers are still pained (news.consumerreports.org)
• Commuter crankiness worldwide at all-time high (cbc.ca)
• I.B.M. Study Quantifies the Pain of Commuting (wheels.blogs.nytimes.com)
• World's Worst Commutes (cars.failblog.org)
• Survey: L.A. gridlock not so bad compared with Paris, Madrid, NYC (latimesblogs.latimes.com)
• For Toronto drivers, the good news is it’s not Mexico City (theglobeandmail.com)
• Fittingly Green: Bike at Least Part of Your Commute (fitsugar.com)
• The Pain of the Daily Commute (well.blogs.nytimes.com)