In the last 25 years of my professional life, I have lived and worked in Delhi, Noida, Chandigarh, Mumbai & now Hyderabad. In each of these cities the stay has been atleast 4-5 years. I observed these cities change as time goes by and traffic chaos increase. It has impacted the commute time and except Delhi where Metro may have helped people manage their commute better, all other cities have had no respite. I don't know anybody in Delhi or Mumbai who takes less than half an hour in their daily home-office commute, one way. Quite a many take a minimum of 45 minutes, some even go up to two hours one way. Assuming the average at 45 minutes, taken both ways that makes it an hour and a half daily, 540 minutes a six-day week, and 432 hours a year. So, we are actually on the road 18 days in a year! And that is just work commute alone.
A study puts the average commuting time in Mumbai at 47.26 minutes; Delhi at 42.96; Bangalore at 37.91; Chennai at 36.08; Hyderabad at 33.82 and Pune at 30.87 minutes.
In India especially the frustration of bad driving habits, poor road conditions and endless jams are real cause of stress. Indians are adaptable, and so they have adapted to this as well. One can see that those lucky enough to be driven by another, putting their time to good use. In most cases, it is the ubiquitous cell phone that comes to the rescue, as people fix business appointments, give instructions, return calls or catch up with friends while cooped up in a stationary vehicle. The technology, read Ipods, Ipads (Wifi, 3G) has made people spend their time, catching up work, and not fretting over being stuck in jams or driving long distances. Music continues to soothen the nerves too. The FM channels in all metros have lots of funny and humorous anchors who can keep you in splits while waiting for traffic to move. FM channels do give updates on traffic jams on certain stretches of roads, for commuters to take plan detours and avoid delays and resultant stress.
Well, there is certain category of people, in fact a large number that I know of who now consider & plan their schedule during commuting. You will hear very of often someone saying “I will call you once I get into car” or “I look at mails once I get into comfort of my car”. One would say it is a perfect way to optimize your productivity.
All this is fine as long as the stress and fatigue of long travel times does not result into road rage or carrying over stress to homes in evenings ( rather night) or offices in the morning.
One trend which may emerge over time, only if some marketer sees money in it, is audio books. The audio books exist, we all know. I had never thought about them, never bought any. Lately, I felt that commute can be put to some better use other than doing usual stuff. So, began listening to Audio books during my 20 minutes commute. In fact it is a good way to marry your love for reading & paucity of time. I just happened to come across these audio books at a store in Hyderabad. Just recently walked into “Reliance Time-out” and was amazed at the no of titles available, all reasonably priced. Even on Flipkart.com there are great no. of titles available. I believe this is a boon for all the harried commuters. One can copy these files into Ipods and even while travelling in local bus, metro train can read (listen) to books they always wanted to but had no time for. The run time on an average, for any of this audio book is 3 hours and going by average commute times, one can read (listen) a new book every week. These titles range from self help, management to fiction too.
So guys happy commuting & wish you time well spent.
