If you’ve ever ridden your bike to work you’ll know how good it can be. You’ll know the satisfaction of bookending your working day with some exercise, and how much more enjoyable it is to commute by bike than sit in your car in traffic, or be squished into public transport.
But those that do ride to work are in the vast minority, at least in places like Australia and the US. In Australia, only around 1% of people ride to work. Roughly 4% say walking is their primary mode of commuting, 15% take public transport, and around 80% drive a private vehicle. In the US, the numbers are similar.
As you might expect, the number of “active commuters” is much higher in Europe – as high as 75% in some places – but there are good reasons for that. European cities tend to have far less urban sprawl than those in the US and Australia, they have vastly more developed bike infrastructure, and culturally, bikes are more widely accepted as a form of transport.
Of course, getting more people riding and walking to work has myriad benefits for society as a whole. It means fewer cars on the roads (which is better for the environment, for one thing), it means less-crowded public transport, and the health outcomes are better as well. And as we’ve already touched on, active commuting is better for individuals, too; a fact reinforced by some new research out of Brisbane.
The research
The new study, from a group of Australian researchers and published in the Journal of Transport & Health, took a qualitative approach to the subject of active commuting. This research wasn’t about seeing how common active commuting is, but rather about learning why people were (or weren’t) riding or walking to work. There’s plenty we can learn from the results.
The researchers, led by Anthony L. Walsh of Melbourne’s Deakin University, worked with employees from three workplaces in Brisbane: a university campus, a government department, and a private engineering firm. All three businesses were office-based, and all were “located near public transport stops and commuter cycling paths in the city centre, and had end-of-trip facilities (EOTF),” such as showers, changerooms, and secure bicycle storage.
The researchers ran a total of six, one-hour focus group sessions, two at each workplace, inviting workers to come in and talk about their commuting habits. A total of 51 people took part in the sessions – 24 males and 27 females – with participants ranging in age from 20-60.
All participants were white-collar workers, with “socioeconomic status higher than Australian averages” (80% lived in suburbs with an “Index of Relative Socioeconomic Advantage and Disadvantage” score of nine or 10 out of 10). On average the participants had a commute length of 8 km – around half that of the Australian average of 16 km.
Those weren’t the only deviations from Australian averages. Of those surveyed:
- 45% said their primary mode of commuting was active
- 39% used public transport
- 16% commuted by private car.
You’ll note that this is a significantly higher percentage of active commuting (and indeed public transport use) than the Australian average. We’ll come back to that a little later.
In each focus group session, the researchers surveyed the participants as a group, rather than one on one. As the researchers explain in their paper, this allowed for more efficient data collection, but it also helped to generate back-and-forth discussions between those in the room.
All of the sessions were recorded, transcribed, and then the researchers pulled out the common themes they heard across sessions. They ended up with five main factors that push people towards active commuting.
Five benefits of active commuting
1. Physical and mental health benefits
The first factor is an obvious one: people felt like active commuting was good for both their physical health, and their mental health. In fact, for many people, the mental health benefits were the main reason they opted for an active commute, even more so than the physical benefits.
“Active commuters described improved mental health, specifically better stress management, as a principal benefit of their commuting mode choice, compared with driving in peak hour traffic,” the researchers write. “For many participants who mentioned stress management, this benefit was their most important benefit of [active commuting].”
The participants spoke about their ride to and from work offering welcome separation between work and the rest of their life, while also providing an opportunity to take stock.
“The experiences of being able to relax, think about and process their day, and have some time to themselves were all highly valued,” the researchers write. “Active commuters, public transport users and drivers agreed that these positive experiences were not characteristics of a driving commute.”
2. Financial benefits
A bunch of the participants cited financial reasons as their main motivation for actively commuting; even more important than the health benefits. They saw financial advantages in a couple of different ways:
- They could get regular exercise without having to pay for a gym.
- They could save money on parking fees, with some people saying they would spend more than $3,000 a year on parking if they drove to work.
- They could save money compared to taking public transport, itself a cost of around $2,000-$2,500 a year.
Interestingly, many of those who cited financial reasons for having an active commute saw the reduced cost not in terms of dollars saved, but in terms of what else they could (or did) spend their money on.
3. Time efficiency
Many participants pointed out that it was faster to ride their bike to work than it was to take public transport or drive. And the ability to combine exercise with a commute they had to do anyway made the process even more efficient.
Even those who took longer to get in by active means still found it worthwhile, again “due to the perceived benefit of the time-efficiency of achieving exercise at the same time [as the commuting journey]”. In fact, as the researchers note, “Most active commuters in this study placed a positive value on their commuting time, rather than viewing it as a disutility.” That wouldn’t be the case for the average commuter.
4. Predictability
“Active commuters, mostly cyclists, expressed forcefully how much they valued the predictability of travel time,” the researchers write. When you ride to work, you’re not at the mercy of public transport timetables, public transport that arrives late (or doesn’t show up at all), unpredictable traffic volumes, or challenges around parking. Instead, it’s possible to gauge an active commute quite accurately; again increasing efficiency and reducing stress.
5. Higher-quality end of trip facilities
The final theme the researchers identified was a little different. It was a little less “here’s a benefit of active commuting” and more “here’s what would encourage more active commuting”. Specifically, it seems that if businesses provide higher-quality end-of-trip facilities, more people are likely to opt for an active commute.
Nowadays building codes in many regions require end-of-trip facilities (EOTF) in new developments and indeed building managers often tout such facilities as a selling point. But the focus group sessions revealed that there’s a difference between simply providing EOTF, and providing facilities that are good enough to encourage people to make their commute more active.
“A few male and female participants, who described themselves as committed (‘hardcore’) cyclists, were less concerned about quality and were just happy that the EOTF existed,” the researchers note. “However, these ‘hardcore’ cyclists added that the poor quality of the EOTF, or the limited access to showers and lockers, meant that they were less willing to encourage their colleagues to try [active commuting].”
Just offering showers and bike storage doesn’t seem like it’s enough. Add-ons like a towel service, the provision of toiletries, and other such measures are likely to have a greater impact when trying to increase your cohort of active commuters.
Shortcomings
So it’s pretty clear: there are many reasons people opt for an active commute, and there are many people who love doing so. But there are some important caveats to consider with this research.
For one, the participants in this study – by virtue of where they work – are all well-educated and affluent, and live in advantaged suburbs. They’re all white-collar workers who tend to work in a single office location, rather than having a job that requires them to move around frequently (like a tradesperson might, for example). The participants in this study also had a much shorter commute than the average Australian, which probably makes active commuting more feasible and more appealing than it does for many people.
All of which is to say that this sample of 51 individuals is far from representative of Australian commuters as a whole. That fact alone probably doesn’t make the findings any less interesting – their reasons for choosing active commutes are just as valid, and informative – but it is important to bear this caveat in mind, particularly when looking at the number of participants who prefer active commuting.
The timing of this study is relevant too. Those focus group sessions were done back in August 2018 which, notably, was before the COVID-19 pandemic and all the changes it wrought to working environments.
As the researchers note: “since the end of wide-spread restrictions, public transport patronage has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, with some shift towards private car use, and increased working-from-home. The impacts of the post-pandemic ‘new normal’ on the use of [active commuting] are likely to be complex.”
In other words: there’s probably a further caveat to consider when it comes to that distribution of active commuters vs non-active commuters because those numbers have likely changed.
Takeaways
Ultimately, the findings from this study aren’t terribly surprising to anyone that’s ridden to work before. You’ll know all about the benefits from first-hand experience.
To those that don’t ride to work – or to those running a business and trying to keep employees happy and healthy – there’s a good lesson to be learned. And for those of us that rode to work in the past, but maybe don’t anymore – for whatever reason – this study is a timely reminder: the benefits of riding to and from work are very real.
Plus, as the researchers note: “cost-of-living pressures have increased, and mental health concerns have mounted since the early years of the pandemic, making financial and mental health benefits of [active commuting] even more relevant today than when the study was conducted.”
And of course, if commuting itself isn’t possible (maybe because you’re working from home post-COVID) a replacement activity – like a lunch ride, say – can be very worthwhile instead, offering many of the same benefits.
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