Train commuters most likely to home work

What does the image show?

The image shows, on average, how many days a week our respondents worked from home. People who used to commute by train were the most likely to work from home before the pandemic and they increased to the highest value (1.04 days per week) during the pandemic. By contrast, car drivers, car passengers, pedestrians and bus users all did very little working from home before the pandemic and increased the least.

Why is this important?

Differences in working from home result from the types of jobs people do and where they live. This combines with how they usually get to work. As more train users have been working at home more intensively, it might be the case that fewer will return to their previous regularity of rail commuting. This will have an impact on fares income, crowding and the case for rail investment.

By contrast people who commute by car have been more likely to carry on driving, reflecting factors such as the lack of public transport accessibility for edge of town warehousing and manufacturing roles where working from home is not an option.