Workers ‘spend five years commuting’

Workers in the UK spend an average of five years commuting to and from their place of work over the course of their careers, new figures reveal.

Research conducted by Work Wise UK and the AA suggests that the average commuter spends nearly 29 working days per year, or 54 minutes a day, travelling to the office.

This figure rises for London commuters, with the many workers in the capital spending 96 working days a year getting to and from work, totalling 18 years over the course of their working lives.

Among the measures suggested to help reduce commuting times are adopting so-called "smarter working practices" which enable workers to operate more flexibly.

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"The vast majority of travel is work-related. A key benefit of the adoption of smarter working is that it reduces the overall need to travel and to travel at specific times," stated Phil Flaxton, chief executive of Work Wise UK.

Earlier this month, as many as five million employees shunned their journey into the office in honour of National Work From Home Day.