A new study on London commuter patterns confirms that ‘back to office’ directives have a limited impact.
Travel in London, a report by Transport for London, revealed that Londoners now make fewer than 2 trips per day and travel for as little as 54 mins each.
Londoners were encouraged to work at home more than doubled, from 0.78 to 1.57 millions in 2023/24. This is just over one third of the workers in London.
The statement said that 47% of London residents can now work at home permanently, regularly or occasionally compared to 30% in 2019/20.
Since the pandemic, hybrid working is more common.
TfL’s London Travel Demand Survey revealed that, in 2023/24, the average number per person of trips made on a daily basis across a 7-day period continued to decline. This is despite a national trend of an increase of 6%.
In 2023/24, the average distance traveled was seven miles. This is down from eight in 2019/20.
Londoners’ travel time dropped from 56 minutes to 54 minutes between 2022/23 and last year.
Travel in London, the first report produced by TfL in 2005/06, showed that Londoners spent an average of 72 min per person each day travelling.
Only 35% of Londoners met Mayor Sadiq Khal’s target of walking or cycling 20 minutes a day – far below the average pre-pandemic of 42%.
In 2023 travel demand in the capital will have risen to 95%, up from 90%, of pre-pandemic baseline.
TfL reported that commuter travel remained concentrated on Tuesdays and Thursdays. However, this was to a lesser degree than in 2022/23.
In 2023, there were 5% more bike trips than in 2022. Total cycling trips increased from one million to 1.33 million per day in 2023.
Santander, or “Boris” bikes, have seen a decline of 26% in use due to the rise of dockless electric bike rental schemes such as Lime and Forest.
The “modal sharing” (the crucial measure of how often people walk, cycle or use public transport instead of private vehicles) rose by one point to reach 63.2%.
This was below the baseline pre-pandemic of 63.6 percent in 2019. Sadiq Khan wants this figure to reach 80 percent by 2041.
