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Leaving Early May Cost You Time
markmcb writes "OmniNerd has an interesting traffic article demonstrating how leaving early for work may cost you time. Brandon Hansen uses a year's worth of data collected on his urban drive to and from work along with statistical analysis to show the effects of varying departure times and considering external factors like nearby school districts' schedules. In the end, a minor shift in his departure time results in saving driving hours equivalent to over a third of the vacation time given annually by his employer."
I do remote sysadmin so it takes me a few seconds to get from bed to where I work (about 40 centimeters). The problem is the time it takes for me to actually wake up.
It doesn't really matter if you leave work earlier or later, as long as you leave slightly different from the rest of the pack, the road will most likely be empty.
However, your employer will always notice if you leave early, so the idea situation is to leave late.
Please stop entering code 2,2,7,6,6,4
Unfortunately, he did not take into account the time it took to do this analysis, and now he has even less free time.
That avoiding rush hour traffic could save you time? I appluad this excellent study, and I hope this team continues their fantastic work!
That is why I am leaving in late April.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
Wow, site is already slashdotted.
I work in IT, and a specialized form, around a metro area. Rush hour is typically from 8-10AM, and 3:30-6PM. I live 45 miles from my work, and have tried for years to find the best time. The best solution I found was getting up at 5, leaving by 5:30, and cutting my 1-hour commute to half an hour. And, it works great! I get in by 6:00AM, and have nearly two hours of quiet with a few coworkers before the loud masses come in with their whining and requests for help.
I just wish that coming in earlier meant leaving earlier.
i'm moving to a new job next month. one of the primary considerations i put into housing, was to be as close as possible to work. commuting sucks. we are moving into a smaller place but i figure i could get as much as an hour or two a day more in time with my family. (and the smaller housing is forcing us to get rid of a bunch of junk and simplify)
with the price of fuel and maintenance, and time with kids that wont be kids long, it was worth it to really make an effort.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
"... In the end, a minor shift in his departure time results in saving driving hours equivalent to over a third of the vacation time given annually by his employer."
;)
In France, this means you would gain 2 additional months of free time.
It's not leaving later that saves you time, it's not driving when everyone else is driving. Not only does this ignore anyone who doesn't drive to work -- my subway commute is a lot faster during rush hour -- but it totally misses the point.
At a previous job, leaving 15 minutes early would save me 30 minutes of commute time, since I would get in before rush hour traffic.
"Spread out over 50 work weeks, that results in a total savings of over 30 hours a year - the equivalent of about a 38% boost to my existing 80 hours of vacation."
Now I'm always hearing how "good" we have it in Europe, what with 25 days (187.5 hours) holiday each year plus 8-10 bank holidays.
Finally something us Brits do better than the Yanks (even the US version of our Office is better).
This is such a half baked study and conclusion that I wonder why the hell it's on /.
You must be new here.
now my boss can site statistical analysis in his list of reasons as to why I should work more overtime.
thanks a lot, guys.
Where you live and work is a choice, and I don't want to have to listen to anyone complain about a situation that is his or her own fault. If you don't like the commute, live closer to work or use alternative forms of transportation. Personally, I choose a long commute to live where I play and commute about 45 min to work, but I made an informed decision (taking into account traffic, my schedule, etc.) before committing myself to both locations. If you can minimize your commute, great; if not, do not complain about the situation you have chosen.
1. I promise not to slam people who have done interesting work just to self-aggrandize.
2. Even if I disagree with the article I will not behave like a petulant 4th grader.
3. In pointing out errors, omissions or other faults I will not call anyone an idiot but will rather offer constructive criticism.
4. I will count to ten before posting anything
I expect there will be additions to this list, but it would really be nice if they were civil. A fella can dream....
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
The rule is that your work start time and end time should add up to 13.
I have a funny recollection about one programmer I've worked with. He's just got hired. He asked to allow him to arrive to work *really* early so to beat the traffic, and got ok. So he was coming to work around 7 am. The rest of the bunch was showing up sometime between 9 and 10. From 7 to 9 am the guy was practically doing nothing, and I mean nothing: reading newspapers and playing Solitair on PC (that was the time before the company got connected to Internet). Of course he was always promptly leaving at 3 pm. So not only he's managed to beat the traffic but had about 2 hours at work doing nothing. He was so successful in that that eventually he became a consultant (in the same company). No kidding.
the *real* solution is not to drive at all. I know this will make me sound like an unpatriotic communist, but (disclaimer - I live in a relatively small Australian city of about 1 million poeple) I can definitely commute much faster in rush hour traffic than I can in a car. I get to work in about 1/2 the time of driving, and about 1/3 the time of public transport. Cycling's very cheap, and it turns an otherwise stressful time into a pleasant experience. And it gives exercise!! What a deal!! :-)
The other plus, is that finding parking for a bicycle is always easy. No more hunting/paying for car parking. My fiance and I both cycle, and this means that we only run one car. A big economic saving. I highly recommend it.
is the wind and my warmup. I usually have a headwind in the morning, and I'm not warmed up, so it takes about 28-30 min. A good tailwind on the way home and I can make the nine miles in under 26.
First post
I'm a teacher in a high school, so this is different for others I'm sure. Still, I find that arriving early is often just as time-consuming. I get there early and so I don't HAVE to get right to work, so instead, I fool around online, look at the important stuff on /. and otherwise keep myself from getting started. If I show up with a lot less time on my hands, I frantically dive into work. Of course, I might just be weird...
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
In the early 1990's, I worked for a company in the NW side of Indianapolis by the three Pyramids that was a strict 8am to 5pm schedule. Where I lived at, I was about 15 miles from work. I usually left for the office around 6:45 and I usually arrived at 7:05. Before 8am, I got quite a few things done before the phone calls start coming. I did programming at the time. I was the primary person who supported the company plants on their software. At the end of the day, I would leave around 4:35pm. A wave of people leave at 4:30pm and 4:45pm from other businesses in the area. I took me about 20 minutes to get home when I left at 4:35pm. If I left at 4:45pm, I would not get home until around 5:20pm. If I left at the standard 5pm, I would get home at almost 6pm At the time, flex time was not prevalent - almost all companies worked on a 9 to 5 schedule.
In my current job, our company is pretty generous with flex time. I usually get into work ranging from 5am to 6am. There is little or no traffic and because of that, I don't have any road rage dealing with idiot drivers. On Mon and Tue, I usually work until 3 to 5pm to get some hours built up. Wed and Thu, I leave earlier and don't have to deal with the traffic on the way home and Friday is my short day.
In my previous job I left from back in October, our company worked with another company who is the prime contractor - gov't contracting for inquiring minds. The company I worked for was generous but the prime contractor was not. They were basically a 7am to 4pm operation. They do not like people leaving early especially on Friday. Some of our poeple had to go work at their facility and the first things they were told was they were expected to be there during normal business hours and comply with a dress code - dress slacks/pants were required, no jeans.
I was told this at one time, "It doesn't matter how early you get in, it is how late you stay that counts !". In some companies, even if the company offers flex time, there would be unwritten rules against taking it or it would be an unwritten rule that it was a perk for those who management liked.
Maybe a 38% boost in vacation time by saving several minutes a day commuting but try to feel the effect of your extra five six minutes a day. It's too short and gets lost in the day. You're going to cause youself more frustration fretting over your six min./day savings especially if the statistics start shifing, which of course will cause you stress and health problems and you'll die that much sooner. Forget about it. Instead start thinking about REAL vacation time. E.g. How can I get an extra week of minutes successfully off this year ...
Not much of a nerd if that didn't ring a thousand bells as it was written. That figure is flat out impossible. Daily gasoline consumption in the USA is estimated at almost 9 million barrels, far less than 800 million gallons.
I'm not sure on what basis you're drawing your conclusion that French, German and British's worker productivity per hour is "way higher" than US worker productivity. The comparative statistics released by U.S. Department of Labor shows that American worker's productivity per hour in manufacturing has been significantly higher than France, Germany, and UK in recent years.
Regards,
Spock_NPA
I used to have a 3 hour (each way) commute from San Jose to San Rafael (north of San Fransisco). I was on the night shift, but that happened to have me leave at the "going home" rush hours and coming back a bit before the "leaving home" rush hours.
I first started by avoiding the city entirely... hitting 237 to 880 and up. But the milpitas junction was always such a crawl that it took far longer than just driving through the city. Then I took 101 up, which would slow to a predictable crawl and take a very long time. Then I started taking the secret route: 280 up through the foothills. Speeds are always in the 90's and there is never a jam unless someone flipped their porche. It still dumps you out in the city, but you avoid the 101 SF traffic jam.
Going back, that route is a nightmare of drunk drivers and morning traffic. Ironically, coming up 580 to 880 to 237 gets you in at ludicrous speeds... I've been going 110 and getting passed by cops on a fully empty 5-lane road.
A three hour commute chopped down to just one hour by judicious exploration of possible routes.
The same has been true in Boston. I used to drive my girlfriend to work from Porter Square to the Cambridgeside Galleria. After experimenting with Mass Ave, Memorial Drive, and a few other routes, it became clear that the fastest way to get there was by taking Somerville to McGrath Highway... both underutilized throughfares that nobody needs to commute on in the morning. A 1 hour commute chopped down to 1/2 hour.
I guess what I'm saying is experiment with your drive. Every place I've lived, from Boston to LA to the silicon valley, has had alternate routes that (once discovered) chopped commute time down tremendously.
The ______ Agenda
Now, travelling I-17 down to Phoenix, that's another story. I-17 gets backed up (both northbound and southbound) every friday afternoon, starting at about 2 or 3 pm, going until past 7 or 8 pm. Usually backed up from the Carefree Highway all the way to the Loop 101. Once you get on the 101, it's ok, but be careful for those Scottsdale Speed Cameras that like to take your picture for going too fast (or just smile when you go past ;-) ...
Sure boss, we're doing the same amount of hours, we're just coming in 2 hours late and leaving 2 hours later than we normally do. What I'm fired?
God spoke to me.
I do. I lived in a crap-hole apt. for several years while saving my bucks and then bought a house at precisely the perfect cycling distance from work, between 7 miles http://tinyurl.com/a2b3p and 9 miles http://tinyurl.com/8meqf. Now i have two 25~35 minute mini-vacations every day.
Seriously: the worst day bicycle commuting beats a good day car commutting. YMMV, but it may be an option for some of you. If it is, thimk about it.
The timing of traffic lights has been one of the biggest factors for me, though that's mostly been since I live near downtown and have commuted out to suburbs/exurbs for work for the last few years. Highway congestion usually wasn't a big factor since I was generally traveling out in the opposite direction of most folks, but traffic lights could easily destroy any headway I had. Their cycles are hard to pin down, and shift of just a few minutes in departure time can mean you're stuck at nearly every light rather than seeing green. But maybe my normal departure times have led me to visit intersections just before or after the point where they switch from "rush hour" mode to "normal" mode. Of course, traffic lights in some areas are biased to allow more traffic inbound to downtown areas, which makes sense, though it effectively penalizes people like me who commute outbound.
Fortunately, I now work at a place that is only about 3.5 miles from where I live, and I can get doorstop-to-doorstop in just over ten minutes and only deal with one traffic light. I'm moving soon, and my commute will be even shorter.
... I, too, live in Houston and the areas in the study are by no means the highest/worst traffic areas in this sprawling metropolis. This is not to say that the traffic there isn't bad - no doubt it exists just about everywhere - but just pointing out that it may not reflect Houston accurately. Just ask anyone who has been anywhere near the I-10/I-610/59 Hwy tangle if you're interested in new ways to string together a few expletives.
I really don't know if the results can be applied generically or really can only be pertinent to the same area studied.
Interesting project, though.
if most people will leave outside of the rush hour, then i guess, they will all be stuck in the same type of rush hour traffic and this will no longer be true.
maybe there should be a way where offices are opened and closed gradually. maybe like schools be open at 7, government offices at 7:30, manufacturing at 8:00, others at 8:30. (i am not sure about the volume of traffic for each segment but you get the idea.) closing time will be graduated too. i guess the problem is with the peak loads. distribute the surge and it will be better for everyone.
employers should try to consider telecommuting as much as possible in this case.
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
I live 25 minutes away from work. During rush hour, that number goes up to an hour 30 (anyone asking, this is the dreaded commute from Caguas, PR to San Juan, PR). What I do to beat the traffic is that I wake up at 3:30. I usually leave my house around 4, 4:15(at 5am, there's already transit going to San Juan). I get to my office at 15 minutes to 5am. I get the best parking spot(no parking in the building), plus I get around two and a half hours of sleep in my car before getting to the office (>3 min walk). I start my day relaxed at 8am after a nice breakfast, and I am very productive during the day.
When I go back home, I usually bite the bullet and take the hour long (hopefully) trip back home. I have a lot of advantage over the other drivers because I only go through rush hour once. They have these desperate faces, and I am just relaxed with my iPod-iTrip combo, listening to some tunes while I get home.
--MaxPowerDJ
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I could never figure out how I could leave for work 10 minutes earlier and still get there at the same damn time. I knew traffic patterns were killing my commute time.
I commute by train (when not telecomuting, that is). It's a 1.5 hour trip in each direction. It would be 45-50 minutes to drive it. In my busy life with a new family, this actually gains me time for reading a book, or watching a DVD, or even (if I'm extremely bored) catching up on email! I would not get this at home, trust me! Here's some quick math: 3 hours per day, 5 days a week for 50 weeks = 750 hours all to myself (about a month - 31.25 days per anum)! Even if I had to work for half of that time while I commute, it's still an extra 2 weeks every year, for reading a good book. I highly recommend it for people who would otherwise not get a spare hour or two to themselves. That is, if trains or other public transport which you do not have to drive are an option to you.
“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with nuclear bombs. We have a protractor.” — Neal Stepnenso
First of all, look at 2005, not year 2000.
... Note that many of us live in tax free states.
I'm with you there.
without social security (which is screwed up) for a reasonable comparison of federal government services
Uh, sorry, you lost me. How can you ignore social security??? It's over 7% out of your paycheck, for Christ's sake! If "it's screwed up" is a valid reason for ignoring a tax, then let's just ignore federal taxes too because they're "screwed up" too. I'm with you on ignoring the employer's portion of FICA, because that doesn't really come directly out of my pocket, but ignoring the employee's portion is just horse hockey.
Second of all, look at the federal government
That's why they list the AVERAGE tax rate. And as an aside, there are only seven states in the U.S. that levy no income tax, and another 2 that don't tax wage income. So that leaves 41 states that have their hand out for your hard-earned. Given that half of the 9 lucky states are quite small population-wise, that means the vast majority of Americans (over 80%, by my quick calculations) live in states with an income tax.
One big problem of the GP's table is that as far as I can tell it ignores sales tax or VAT or whatever you want to call it. So Canada's tax rate may look low, but their combined PST/GST is around 15% depending on the province. It also seems to ignore property taxes, local income tax (NYC charges income tax on top of what the feds and the state want), and any other tax you can come up with. In other words you'd be stupid to do anything useful with it.
Taxes are part of that expenditure. Payroll taxes do not affect those with large incomes nearly the way they affect those with smaller incomes. For one thing, payroll taxes only affect wages. They do not affect capital gains and dividends.
Income taxes are progressive, but sales and property taxes are not. Sales tax is assessed in proportion to consumption, not in proportion to income or wealth. Thus, sales taxes tend to be regressive, as those with less income spend a greater proportion of their income on basic necessities. Property taxes are a bit more complicated: They tend to hit folks in the middle. Poorer folks tend to rent, and pay property tax indirectly through rent. That tax is amortized over all the renters and so tends to hit each individual less. The folks in the middle buy houses and get hit with property tax directly. As your wealth grows, typically the value of your property grows sublinearly. I know if my income doubled, I would not buy a house that cost twice as much.
So, there's two impacts here:
That threshold isn't a fixed number, but rather flexible depending on the spending habits of individuals. I agree: Most people don't save enough, and push that threshold higher than it should be. But it's a very real fact that there is a threshold above which only truly reckless spending would cause you not to accumulate wealth. (And, well, that happens often enough if you look for washed up celebrities....)
Personally, I think many of the recent tax reforms are rather bogus... they tend to tilt the overall tax burden further toward the lower ranks, pushing the investment (and thus, wealth accumulation) threshold further up. Cecil Adams did a thoughtful analysis of Reagan's tax reforms. I'd love to see him do an update relative to Bush's reforms. Hint: Us middle class wage earners don't earn the bulk of our income from dividends. I bet you can guess who does, though.
I'm in favor of progressive taxation, not because "Oh, the rich guy can better afford it." Rather, the putative "rich guy" benefits more from the infrastructure, stability and social investment the government performs than the average individual. Roadways, public works, stable financial markets (overseen by the SEC), etc. Those don't directly impact the "little guy," except to cause the movers and shakers to decide where they do business, and how much business they choose to conduct. It's those with capital that reap the most direct benefits, and so they owe something back to the system that allows them to accumulate and control that wealth. It's only fair.
What if we went to a pure "wealth tax"?
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
I carpool to and from work about 20 miles each way. Interestingly, my non-scientific observation of our commute times and what affects it matches pretty closely with the linked article:
1) Friday mornings are usually pretty smooth. Mondays are often smooth too.
2) Evenings are always terrible. It doesn't matter the day of the week, they're just consistently awful.
3) Days/weeks without school are lighter.
4) Leaving at 8:40 gives a pretty consistent 30 minute commute. Leaving an hour earlier guarantees bad traffic.
The author did miss one key point though, which I call the Nielson Law of Traffic Dynamics (named for my carpool buddy who discovered it):
Traffic on the evening of October 31st is unquestionably always the worst traffic of the year, every year.
Every year we forget about this law, and every year we curse the thousands of parents who *have* *to* *be* *home* *before* *sunset*.
Neil
With your family, that is.
The primary goal isn't to minimize the time spent driving (though that would be nice). The goal is to maximize time with your friends, family, hobby, etc. Staying late to avoid rush hour is pointless if you have somewhere you want to get to.
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
It's a lot of fun living in the city... if you don't have kids, and can afford to live in an area where you won't get mugged.
Kids are lots better off with fenced backyards (sandbox, garden, treehouse...) and quiet dead-end streets.
Nobody needs a lawn, though it can be useful for sports. Plant your yard with trees.
I found the article rather interesting, and it is probably interesting as a hint for a city planner.
.. 35 days.
Not personally really relevant, but generally interesting, but what made me laught was the conclusion at the end.
30% increase in hollydays ? hum, even ignoring the fact that 7minutes in the evening is not the same as 7minutes on the beach during a hollyday, reality hit home when I read that it is 30hours in addition to the 80hours of "normal hollydays", that is 10 days ?
In continental europe the normal number of hollydays for IT people is at least 25 days, and typically 30
Therefore the result is not only that since there are less work days the 30 hours gain would be about 10% lower, but it would have to be compared to a much higher number of hours.
In europe (where the typical worker productivity is higher than in the US) the news would be:
By careful planning of your commute hours you can gain about 10% of additional "free time minutes", wich would of course be a great conversation piece in front of the coffe machine.
---------
Work less, work smarter
15,000 miles in 100 hours - that's an average speed of 150mph in his commute
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
The second car is a Hayabusa Turbo. Yes, it's in mph.
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BoomerSooner: The US economic system grows very quickly compared to european nations. Would anyone here be happy with a 0.8% productivity increase or GDP annual growth (here in the US)? Hell no, people would be freaking out.
You're picking your figures to match your argument. Sure, the US economic system grows very quickly compared to some European nations - but others do better. The UK annual growth rate for Q4 2005 was 1.8% - faster than the US annual growth rate for Q4 2005 at 1.7%.
I work for a company in their UK HQ, with US offices; I am consistently horrified by the miserly 2/3-week holiday allowance that my US cow-orkers seem to consider "normal". The raw minimum in EU states is 4 weeks and most companies offer nearer 5 weeks for established employees.
The thing is, though, that if the cost of living is cheap enough compared to your net salary, you can afford to take unpaid leave. With the cost of living and taxes being much lower in the US, many more US employees can afford to take unpaid leave than UK employees.
So any argument comparing growth to paid leave doesn't hold water; we aren't comparing apples to apples.
Ditto unemployment. Not only do unemployment rates vary enormously across the EU (mass unemployment in France; hardly any in the UK), but the benefits paid also vary enormously.
Treating the EU as one homogenous mass, just because it's relatively small, densely populated, some bits of it share a single currency and some (different) bits of it share a single border control system, is going to completely kill any statistical argument. You can't pretend that rich countries such as Denmark and the UK are in any way economically similar to poorer nations such as Portugal or Poland. The EU exists to make trade easier and regulations more consistent, not to make the dozens of member countries into one country called Europe.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Europe has less space in its cities (cities being old, from medieval times and hence been made with tightly packed narrow streets to aid defence, and complex like maze) and many people. They started using smaller cars first, then they started to use mass transport more and more. (in fact they always used it keenly). I think that the congestion is unavoidable for any nation that tends to use cars to commute - on average 2 person for 1 car, around 2 seats going to waste. I believe we should demand that mass transport should be made more luxurious and more common and start using it.
Read radical news here
Now the interesting thing, which I have noticed is that when I throw the usual routine on its head and add some mutation to my search, everything works completely differently. You wake up at an insane hour of the morning and drink coffee. You then get on one of the first few trains to depart, these are invariably on time; I suppose the train drivers responsible enough to get up early are the most competent and the least likely to end up in Scotland by accident. This train is empty and free of smelly arm-pits. It is also fast and direct, requiring no further changes. Why this is not the case with the later trains, is beyond me.
The general spirit at this time of the morning, is one of champions. "I woke up before the world, therefore I am a man of power, ambition and lots of loud alarm clocks." You then stroll at leisure from station to work place with a trendy coffee in hand. The work done on the train is then casually uploaded onto workstation and you continue on a roll, glancing at those lazy sods strolling in at 9am. Your spirits are on top of the world. Come mid-afternoon, you're tired, but you've been there since the early hours. If you can't cope you can responsibly excuse yourself due to hard work and head home, stating that your work will be continued on the train. This is then valued, given that the announcement is made up front.
Somehow leaving early gives you a buzz. One should be warned, however, that insanely early starts for more than two days in a row can be hazardous to your health and lead to death by foolishly strolling in front of an old granny's very slow push bike.
[1]( George Michael lives there, and obviously never takes the train. )
I know this wont work for large distances (20km+) but I just got a bike this week and I drive ~10km a day with it to work and home. ;)
In a green city like mine (Munich, Germany) it does not only make driving to work fun, its healty, I am just as fast as with a car in a urabn environment and since I own a smart roadster it doesnt make much difference on what I can carry with me.
An additional plus: you can take shortcuts through parks and industrial sites where no car can get through wich cuts the distance even further.
I think the point of the article is that you can use your time more efficiently if you pay attention to how your commute duration correlates with departure time. When I got my job and moved from another state, I specifically chose where to reside so that my commute would be counter to most of the traffic.
Over the years I've also discovered which routes are clearest during which hours and which months. For example, there are 6-lane roads that are split 4-2 inbound in the morning, 4-2 outbound in the evening, and 3-3 at other times with parking in the outer lanes. If I time my travel so that I hit those roads just as they become 3-3, then the traffic moves smoothly and the outer lanes aren't full of parked cars yet.
I live only 4 miles from my office. Depending on the time of day/year that I leave, it can take anywhere between 5-15 minutes. During the summer months it is typically less congested in the morning, and the same is true for winter/spring break - no buses or parents frantically trying to get their kids to school.
As a side note, the Oregon legislature decided almost 2 years back that little Timmy should be protected at 2AM on Christmas morning if Timmy so decides to visit the school grounds. This means that some school zones (areas that are normally 25-30mph) are in effect 24/7/365, meaning all traffic must bottleneck down to 20mph even if school is not in session at that time. I've heard they may be reconsidering this law, to lessen the time constraints.
Prove it.
He neglected to include astronomical factors. At some times of the year he may be experiencing sunrise and sunset slowdowns, as drivers slow due to glare from the sun being directly in front of them. The spring period when he noticed a slowdown in the evening could be due to driving nearly directly west (he did not describe his route, but his house is to the northwest). My guess is that on his drive home he uses the major road toward the west which has a few curves in it, with drivers being bothered by the sun just after each curve.