The geographical distance between home and workplace is present and increases within modern society. Along with changing economic structures and technological developments it has increased the spatial division of labour and changed the pressure on global, regional and local markets. Regional development strategies today emphasize on more mobile, flexible and larger geographical labour markets to improve matchmaking between jobs and labour force to reach and obtain development. Commuting has therefore increased and is often promoted as a positive solution for involved individuals and the regional society at large. Although, the notion and benefits of such regional development strategies have been questioned as commuting involves a consideration between economic and social circumstances and effects on all involved household members. The social and economic effects on commuting households in Umeå enlarged local labour market region have therefore been studied in and investigated in this thesis. Empirical data has been collected through qualitative interviews with four commuting households with different home-work locations and commuting situations. Results of this study goes in line with previous studies and pictures how commuting is a strategy to obtain or maintain desired living conditions within desired location when the local labour opportunities are limited. Commuting households therefore gain “quality of life” and labour opportunities. But, the economic benefits are reduced by transport costs and reduction of labour hours, and the social consequences of reduced time in the home environment effects relations between family members and the division of household responsibilities’. This study have also broaden the understanding of commuting effects and showed that shorter commuting distance also hold social and economic implications for commuting households.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 151-156).

Thesis (M.Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 151-156) Also available in print.

This thesis analyzes how a decrease in the commuting time affects the region’s productivity and accessibility on the targeted area Jönköping, Vaggeryd and Värnamo. Numerous municipalities that surround the railway, within a one-hour time range have been included to determine whether an investment on the railway is efficient. The potential growth effects and productivity are measured in wages, and the accessibility is measured as population accessibility. The accessibility is calculated with an accessibility measure, also known The Potential of Opportunities. Additionally, the study includes four control variables. Out of these, four of the six variables proved to significantly influence the regions accessibility and productivity whereas multicollinearity is present in the remaining two. The study differentiates from other similar reports in such way that it investigates a brand new area, different municipalities and finally through the control variables that have not been explicitly used for this specific purpose. The investment is shown to have a substantial effect on the municipalities, especially the smaller ones close to the railway. Shorter time distances, better accessibility and increased productivity all contribute to economic growth and agglomeration.

Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone Project / Abstract Suburbs have long been a place near and dear to the hearts of many, they provide private property, large homes and a sense of security. They have traditionally been located far from city centers and also far from jobs. The following paper researchers whether or not suburban homes can be updated to compensate for the extra distance their inhabitants have to commute to work. The study looks at three case houses in the focus area of Continental Ranch, a Pulte suburb. The follow research was performed using a cost benefit analysis on three case homes and four case vehicles. The results were calculated using available data, estimates and website based calculators. The five upgrades calculated were CFL/LED light bulb replacement, water fixture upgrades, fridge replacement, rainwater harvesting and installation of solar panels. The case homes varied in size from 1,369 to 3,609 square feet and were built between 1989 and 2001. The homes have between two to five bedrooms and two to three bathrooms. The cars chosen as vehicle options for comparison were the Toyota Prius, the Honda Civic, the Honda Odyssey and the Chevrolet Tahoe, all 2016 models. The results found that all three homes could be upgraded to compensate for the annual cost of gas consumption of all four car options. It should be noted that these calculations did not take into account the cost of the upgrades, but rather the savings it would procure.

Due to a number of reasons, black commuters In South Africa are often faced with long, timeous and complicated journeys to work. The purpose of this research report is to determine how these long commuting distances influence the punctuality and rate of absenteeism of black employers to the work-place. A survey was undertaken in Cape Town, Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Durban. The sample of 1238 respondents was divided into long and short-distance commuters and the answers of these two groups were compared. Respondents were questioned about factors causing them to be late or absent from work as well as . their attitudes towards punctuality. They were also questioned about their employers' attitude towards lateness. The results showed clearly that transport related problems constituted a major part of all late arrivals at the work place. Lateness due to transport problems was mainly influenced by the distance travelled to work, the total travel time, the number of transfers, the time the commuter had to leave his home, and the time he had to start work. Although absenteeism was also increased by the distance commuters had to travel and the difficulty of the journey, it was experienced much less than lateness. Lateness at the work-place due to transport problems is a big problem in South Africa, which is aggravated by the long distances faced by many commuters. It is important to try to minimize the problem and thereby cut the cost of lateness to industry.

Emergence of autonomous vehicles (AVs) offers the potential to fundamentally transform the way how urban transport systems be designed and deployed, and alter the way we view private car ownership. In this thesis we advocate a forward-looking, ambitious and disruptive smart cloud commuting system (SCCS) for future smart cities based on shared AVs. Employing giant pools of AVs of varying sizes, SCCS seeks to supplant and integrate various modes of transport -- most of personal vehicles, low ridership public buses, and taxis used in today€™s private and public transport systems -- in a unified, on-demand fashion, and provides passengers with a fast, convenient, and low cost transport service for their daily commuting needs. To explore feasibility and efficiency gains of the proposed SCCS, we model SCCS as a queueing system with passengers' trip demands (as jobs) being served by the AVs (as servers). Using a 1-year real trip dataset from Shenzhen China, we quantify (i) how design choices, such as the numbers of depots and AVs, affect the passenger waiting time and vehicle utilization; and (ii) how much efficiency gains (i.e., reducing the number of service vehicles, and improving the vehicle utilization) can be obtained by SCCS comparing to the current taxi system. Our results demonstrate that the proposed SCCS system can serve the trip demands with 22% fewer vehicles and 37% more vehicle utilization, which shed lights on the design feasibility of future smart transportation systems.

The study aims to investigate which factors determine why people who live in Valdemarsvik commute to work and how work commuting affects their everyday lives. In order to find such factors, five individuals were interviewed and the same five individuals also answered survey questions. More and more people commute to and from work in Sweden. The reason for why humans today travel greater distances physically is because many have access to a car. This means that more people can travel farther for work, then return back to their home when the work day is over. People can also move even greater distances through virtual mobility and all the communication technologies that exist. Crucial factors in determining why people in Valdemarsvik choose to commute are the love for the place and the desire to live in Valdemarsvik specifically and to be close to family and friends. Some of the participants in this study have moved back to Valdemarsvik with commuting as a result. For the participants in the study, the car is necessary to be able to get to and from work. Given the lack of public transportation to the south and west, it is not possible to get to work if the individual does not have access to a car and a driving license. The participants in the study believe that car-sharing is not an option because they do not want to be dependent on someone else or having to take someone else into account. Commuting to work affects the everyday life of the individuals in several ways. Work commuting leads to fatigue and limits the amount of time available. It’s difficult to be at a certain place at a certain time, which means that the participants may refrain from leisure activities. Several of the participants in the study made a conscious choice to move back to Valdemarsvik and there are no particular circumstances that would cause them to quit work commuting. On the other hand, if several different factors were to interfere with each other, commuting to work could become unsustainable. There are also positive factors associated with commuting, such as the opportunity for a better job and better finances. The advantage of time geography is that it is based on each individual. If the teacher uses time geography in their teaching, students can develop knowledge about how different factors in society affect their choices, but also how the choices they make themselves affect the world in which they live.

Commuting is becoming more and more important in every day life in the world of complex labour markets. If for hundred years ago most workers lived less than one hour walking distance from their workplace, then today they commute daily outside the cities and villages they live. Often is it a trade off between unemployment and employment. The subject of this thesis is to investigate if there are differences in female and male commuting behaviour. Especially it studies to what extent their spatial interaction is affected by variables such as labour in origin municipality, jobs in destination municipality and the distance between these two. Gravity models are used, and six different versions are estimated. The commuting data used in thesis comes from SCB (Statistics Sweden) and data about travel time collected by the Swedish Road Administration. Commuting data includes 1 003 771 people in Sweden who commute to a job located in another municipality than he or she was settled. The results imply that men are less sensitive to distance between two locations. Moreover, the amount of labour in origin and the amount of jobs in destination have higher effect on male commuting.

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