There was an interesting article in the NZ Herald today on the issue of “Transport Stress”, which was based on the findings of an IBM study into the effects of transportation on our general psychological wellbeing. Here are some excerpts:
Almost a third of Auckland drivers believe traffic congestion is harming their health and performance at work or in class, according to an international survey out today.
A “commuter-pain index” commissioned by information technology giant IBM in 23 global cities found 80 per cent of Auckland drivers complaining of travel stress.
One of the biggest advantages of public transport, in my opinion, is the ability to relax while you’re on the bus or train. You can doze off, you can check emails, read website on your phone and so forth. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have an hour each way commute in the car each day. The stress that would bring.
The article continues:
The findings follow estimates that up to $1 billion is lost to Auckland’s economy each year through congestion.
IBM managing consultant Suzi Shaw Lyons said yesterday that the cost of congestion appeared to range from 2 per cent to 4 per cent of the region’s contribution to gross domestic product.
It would be useful to see studies showing the economic impact of congestion in Auckland. I’ve heard the “it costs a billion a year” figure thrown around on many occasions, but never actually seen a source for it. However, it is fairly obvious that having freight held up, as well as having workers being less productive if they’re stressed out from the commute, is going to have an economic impact.
How does Auckland compare to overseas cities? Well there’s a useful table here and the article provides a few comparative examples to take a look at:
On a “commuter-pain index” scale of 100, Auckland scored a relatively modest 28, compared with 99 each for Beijing and Mexico City, 97 for Johannesburg and 84 for Moscow.
London and Paris were each rated with a pain level of 36 on the index – which weighs up 10 factors including commuting time, start-stop traffic and high petrol prices.
But driving to work in Auckland is more of hassle than in Los Angeles, New York, Melbourne and Stockholm.
Wellington drew level with Melbourne, reflecting what Ms Shaw Lyons said was a greater reliance on a more developed public transport system, which left just 50 per cent of survey participants driving themselves to work or classes in single-occupancy cars.
That compared with 76 per cent of Christchurch drivers, who suffered a “pain” rating of 22.
I wonder if the study looked at the stress for drivers alone, or whether it looked at the stress suffered by all commuters? Apparently the traffic in Moscow is utterly horrific, but as the Metro system is one of the best in the world, you can still get around fairly easily. The same is quite possibly true for Beijing and Mexico City.
I hope to find out a few more details on the study and discuss it in a bit more detail over the next few days, but I think it is useful in showing that commuting long distances, particularly by car, does have a harmful effect on our wellbeing. One would think it’s a reasonably strong argument against urban sprawl.
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One of the best things we did was buying a house near a train station, we don’t really have any travel related stress except for the odd occasion that we need to drive, in the morning my wife normally sleeps on the way to work and I often do on the way home. I think that the less stress issue is one of the big advantages of PT that isn’t really push, the other big one is that you can actually do work on your trip if you want to so you can be more productive or perhaps work a shorter day.
I think this report has to be read in context as it’s all good and well saying commuters have less stress in Christchurch than in Berlin, but the latter has such a good PT system that you can generally choose not to deal with the stress of driving – therefore getting around is extremely easy and stress free at all times of the day, something that can’t be said about ChCh.
If you are stuck in traffic, then you have no right to complain about it – because you are the problem.
Not quoted in Granny’s reporting was this gem that Jon spotted: 51% of [Aucklanders] questioned say they wish there was better public transport to give them an alternative.
There is also another interesting phenomenon which is that people consistently over-estimate how much pleasure having a bigger house will bring them and under-estimate how much distress a longer commute will bring them.
Psychologists think this is just because people, in general, tend to over-estimate the benefits of things that are actually tangible that they will get straight away (e.g., when they buy the house) and under-estimate the cost of things that are off in the future and which are uncertain (e.g., a commute which you hope will only take 20 minutes but after buying the house you realize it takes 40).
I wonder how much extra stress will come on from the announcement in the Herald that petrol (95 octane) has broken $2/L. Right in time for Christmas, which may do good things for the road toll, but also perfectly timed to become a significant sticking point in the election year if National’s determination to build more motorways holds.
It was an election issue last time around as well and the time before, I remember National trying to tempt votes by offering to cut petrol taxes and I’m sure they’ll do the same this time around. Honestly, I’d prefer it if the price of petrol wasn’t an election issue as it doesn’t get debated in terms of how to avoid needing to buy petrol, but rather in terms of ways the government should be lowering the price through tax cuts.
The NZHerald article proves my point, it ends by suggesting the rises are due to the government and them being greedy rather than pointing out oil prices are slowly but surely rising and tax cuts will only provide very short ‘relief’.
Yes, they could’ve pointed out that at the time of the GST increase only about 4c of the price was down to the increase.
Also, something has to pay for the RoSN. Fuel tax is the only excise that National are happy to see increase, and that’s because it mostly socks the poor, pays for Joyce’s toys, and doesn’t piss off their liquor lobby mates.
Cynical? Who, me?