Commuters’ daily drudge is a problem for employers too

Even by the exotic standards of train delay excuses, the reason for my commuter service’s late arrival one day last week was unusual: “Swan on the line.” But it got me thinking, Nassim Nicholas Taleb-style, about the hidden business risks posed by the humble commute to work.

Organisations spend hours worrying about catastrophes, refining business continuity plans in case of tsunami or terrorist outrage. They devote more time than ever – though still not enough – to the psychological strains imposed on staff when at work. But mostly, except at the highest level of policy making, they do not see commuting, with its occasional inconveniences and uncertainties, as their problem.

They should. Despite high hopes for telecommuting and homeworking, millions still do it. In Britain, according to the 2011 census, 11.2m people travel to work between different local authority areas. In the US, some 128m citizens commute, mainly by car.

Property price inflation is forcing people to travel further to get to work. Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury, said last year that London could turn into a dystopia, with rich international financiers inhabiting the centre, served by a “disenfranchised population” shipped in daily. Interest in “mega-commuters”, who make less frequent but far longer trips to work, sometimes by air, hides the real challenge for business: coping with the consequences for ordinary commuters who travel less far, by more crowded and unpredictable means.

Our pain is, admittedly, not that acute, unless you have to contort yourself into a packed train at rush hour. Commuting is, in the words of Tom Cohen, deputy head of University College London’s Transport Institute, more of a “grim reality” that most city workers simply endure. Given the complexity of ferrying millions daily, the number of variables – including that swan – and the age of much infrastructure, commuting is mostly all right.

But since when have high-performing companies been happy with “mostly all right” as a goal?

The research is clear: the economic and psychological cost of a bad commute is high. People who see their trip to work as unpredictable have more salivary cortisol, released in response to stress. The effects of a bad journey spill over into the workplace and home. Women suffer especially. According to a 1988 study, female Italian factory workers had shorter commutes than men, but a far higher incidence of stress, family problems, illness, work absences and job dissatisfaction, which were exacerbated by commuting.

It is not just a developed world problem. A recent UCL study showed commuting had become a “physical and mental burden” for residents of Xi’an in China, forecast to be one of the 25 fastest-growing cities in the world by 2025.

A densely populated city is more economically efficient, more environmentally friendly and more innovative than a dormitory town. But planning regulations and public resistance prevent most cities building upwards, as economic logic dictates. The gravitational pull of cities such as Tokyo or New York means the reality is often a megalopolis rather than a bosky paradise where young creatives and software engineers live a leafy stroll or bike ride from their hipster workshops.

Companies that assume policy makers and mass transit companies will relieve the strain and that daily problems are just a cost of business are doing their people a disservice. With the help of abundant public data on passenger movements, they should co-ordinate with each other and their staff about the best times to leave, arrive in, or avoid the office. If Uber can predict passenger supply and demand, so could companies, staggering work days accordingly.

Bosses always want to know if shipments of raw materials do not arrive on time and extract minuscule improvements from suppliers. Why are they not putting the same pressure on the companies that daily deliver their vital human assets to work late or unhappy or both?

There is nothing as boring or as sad as commuter rage: the man in the creased suit on the platform in the evening, railing at the hapless train operative in his Day-Glo tabard. Once or twice, I have been that man. But perhaps it is finally time for others to get angry, too.

andrew.hill@ft.com

Twitter: @andrewtghill