London commuting is more stressful than moving house, going to the dentist or dealing with money matters
Commuting in London is more stressful than moving house, going to the dentist or dealing with money matters.
Our daily journey to and from work is even more infuriating than the job itself.
For those of us who have had to put up with months of stress at London Bridge, the Farringdon flood, last night's South West Trains network problems or the near-daily travel chaos on the Tube, this will probably not come as a surprise.
Unsurprisingly for those of us who do the daily trek across the capital, London has come out with one of the worst scores out of six of Europe's major cities. Only Rome registers as more stressful out of the cities surveyed.
Across Europe, nearly two-thirds of commuters were late at least once every month because of problems with public transport. Almost a third – 27 per cent – said they were late three times a month.
London comes out worse on average, however. Some 80 per cent of commuters said they were late at least once a month, while 49 per cent failed to get into work at all on at least one occasion last year.
In total, 41 per cent of Londoners said their commute was becoming increasingly stressful
Andreas Ostendorf, vice president of sustainability, environment and safety engineering for Ford of Europe, said: “For many people it can feel like they have done a full day before they have even set foot in the office.”
This is not the only recent study that shows the toll commuting is taking on our emotional wellbeing.
According to a survey put out by the ONS in February, the UK's commuters have lower life satisfaction, a lower sense that their daily activities are worthwhile, lower levels of happiness and higher anxiety on average than non-commuters.
Average happiness levels begin to fall and anxiety levels begin to rise after the first 15 minutes of the commute to work.
Another survey carried out by Moovit suggests the average London commute takes 104 minutes each day.
Rome is the worst European country, with commuters spending 111 minutes getting to work, but Bogota and Los Angeles came out as the worst globally, with residents taking 134 and 133 minutes respectively.