Unless We Change Our Commuting Habits, Our Companies Will Suffer

As I write this I am in my ninth week of lockdown. My commute has moved from a 45 minute cycle, to a 10 second walk, to an indefinite wait to see if I will ever be commuting to the same office again.

However, one thing that is now clear in all this confusion, is that the way we currently commute is not going to work in the future.

Having commuted by bike in London for the last decade, on the odd occasion when I am forced to use public transport I was already confused about why people chose to use it every single day. Being jammed between somebody with a backpack digging into my spine whilst giving the ‘I’m sorry’ look to the person I was forced to press against in order to stay upright in a carriage was already horrifying. The idea of doing that every day, or any time at all in the next 2 years, is now not just unthinkable to me, but to the vast majority of the population.

Although there is no concrete evidence for it at the time of writing, I don’t think that it’s a surprise that a city with a transport network like London's became a global hub for the virus.

However, up until February this year, five million journeys were made every single day by tubes in London alone and over 540 tube trains were running during peak times. With predictions being that TfL will need to run at a capacity of 10%, that will be the equivalent of 54 trains serving the entire population of London when they need to travel the most.

This is why commuting needs to change to other methods. It is no longer just a nice-to-have or something positive to add to a CSR update that nobody reads. This is business critical. Companies who do not adapt to this change will suffer.

Many organisations will think that signing up to a cycle-to-work scheme or chucking up a couple of bike racks will be fine, but those companies who cannot offer the kind of infrastructure needed by their newly two-wheeled workforce will suffer a similar fate to those who do nothing at all.

A new challenge like this, one that nobody would have even considered a few months ago, requires a new way of thinking.

It’s why I have started Commuting Innovators. As somebody who has been involved in the cycling industry for the past decade, I want to minimise the potential disruption that these changes will cause.

I truly believe that although these changes come due to the horrors of a global pandemic, they will have a positive impact in the long run.

If you want to find out more information, if you want to talk about challenges you have, or if you want to get involved just email me at [email protected]. (website coming soon)