EU Polls The Public About Abandoning Daylight Savings Time (europa.eu)

"Following a number of requests from citizens, from the European Parliament, and from certain EU Member States, the Commission has decided to investigate the functioning of the current EU summertime arrangements and to assess whether or not they should be changed."

The EU has launched an official "online consultation" seeking input from the public. Long-time Slashdot reader mitch0 writes: The consultation was started after some member states expressed the opinion that the daylight saving time should be abolished within the EU. There were some local motions in member countries as well, but these cannot really proceed without full coordination with all member states.

So far it seems that most of those wanting to end the daylight-saving change would stick to summer time all-year round, but the questionnaire has a specific question about this issue so a more representative result is expected after the survey is closed in the middle of August...

Citizens can express their opinion about the summer time change by filling out a short online survey.

Comments

Been there, tried that

[Anonymous Coward]

So far it seems that most of those wanting to end the daylight-saving change would stick to summer time all-year round

This has already been tried several times over the years and always with the same result: People discover that they don't like it being dark longer in the morning during the winter.

Here's a better idea. Why don't we pass a law requiring the earth to change its orbit, so that we always have the same number of hours of daylight year round.

That makes just as much sense as the constant bitching and complaining about daylight saving time.

Openning hours

[DrYak]

This has already been tried several times over the years and always with the same result: People discover that they don't like it being dark longer in the morning during the winter.

...which you can also compensate by changing working hours.

And several business have different opening hours during the seasons anyway (e.g.: due to reduced work force due to vacations in summer).
So giving summer-specific opening hours that also happen to take into account the variation of sun time isn't that far fetched.

(E.g.: public transport has different time tables at different time of the year, public services tend to have reduced opening hours due to lots of them going into vacations, hospitals emergencies work in shifts around the clock anyway, movie schedule change each week with new release, work-from-home and artists put their own work hours anyway, university research team tend to have the most WTF work hours specially for PhD students (except for that guy who has Eukaryotik cell cultures. He needs to feed them every 32 hours no matter how out of sync it gets with any rational work schedule), etc. Shops are about the only things which seem to open at a constant timetable.)

It used to make sense to shift clocks back in the industrial era when most of the activities were dictated by fixed time schedules and nearly everybody needed to be in sync (factory working ours).
Nowadays, in our mostly service-sector-based type of work, you need to check (e.g.: online on your smartphone) the opening hours and time schedule for probably around 7 out of 10 business. Supressing DST will simply make you check for the last remaining 3 too, instead of relying on fixed clock times.

Re:Let's do Metric Time Instead!

[magarity]

No more need for time zones, or the dreaded DST, at all! One time zone to rule them all!

You're trying to be funny but actually in China this is exactly what they do. The whole country is on Beijing Time despite being what would normally be a 4 time zone wide country. And they don't bother with DST either.

Tyranny of the Majority

[InfiniteZero]

I am an extreme night owl by nature. It's something generic according to the latest research. I try my best to fit in with "normal" people's schedule, and get by OK for most part with a painstakingly maintained bedtime. But twice a year, the time switch throws me off for weeks at a time. It has been a struggle of a lifetime.

If there is one textbook example of the tyranny of the majority, this is it. We need to get rid of it in the states too.

Re: DST

[Kjella]

So... I'm not sure who's the liar here. Maybe you're just lying to yourself.

From the looks of it the effect varies with the local climate:

But does daylight time still save energy? Not really, according to most research on the subject. Lighting has become a smaller part of overall energy consumption, and extending the use of daylight hours encourages people to use more air conditioning and heating. A 2017 analysis of 44 different papers on the subject found that, on average, the policy helped save 0.34 percent of electricity use. Places farther from the Equator (with mild summers and lower cooling demands) might save energy, but places closer to the Equator used more energy during daylight time, the researchers found.

I did find another study (PDF) from Europe though that showed that really far north like Scandinavia it didn't actually help much at all. So it looks to be a Goldilocks zone, if you can extend the number of temperate days where there's no major need for warming/cooling then you can save a bit. And if we're moving towards EVs then it'll be an even smaller fraction of total power usage. But it's still zero point something percent.

Stop this madness

[Anonymous Coward]

That article has several logical flaws. While there may be benefits to *being on* DST, there are also significant drawbacks to *switching* to and from DST, as mentioned above. The article never admits those, or compares their relative risks.

Assuming it's true that changing clocks twice a year helps match "our modern clockwork-driven world adjust to our ancestral sleep and wake patterns", then wouldn't changing clocks 4 times a year be even better? Or every month? Why not every day? And instead of doing it per-state/country, why not adjust it exactly as optimal per latitude? We've got computers and satellites now.

If you think that the cost of changing clocks is zero, then you should want to change them every day. If you admit that changing clocks has a nonzero cost, then you need to measure and compare the costs and benefits. The current implementation of DST is the worst of both worlds. It's like saying that 60mph is too fast for city driving, therefore everyone exiting the freeway should slam on the brakes as hard as possible. Maybe the premise is true, but this solution is terrible.

> Well, it’s pretty simple: wake up with the sun like our ancestors did.

Great idea, but that's not what DST is. If you're using a daylight alarm clock (or actual daylight), DST is irrelevant at best.

> Congratulations; you just reinvented DST...poorly. Now instead of turning the clock back or forward, you have to add or subtract to the operating hours of every place you do business with twice a year.

I already have to do plenty of mental arithmetic with clocks every year. The public clocks in every transit station in my city don't get set for DST for about a month after each DST change. Half the stores in my city have separate "winter hours" and "summer hours", because even DST isn't good enough for them. Is your goal to stop people from needing to add/subtract times? DST is worse at that, too.