Daily commute must evolve to lure back the ‘Covid aristocracy’

Every day, HR business partner Katherine Hurst would leave her home in the commuter town of Gravesend in Kent at 7am. Her fiance Nick Chipperfield, a senior policy adviser in the financial services, did the same. It was the start of a long day commuting into London on trains and tubes and then back again.

Since March last year, the couple have seen a lot more of each other. After the Government’s order for people to work from home if they could, their daily routines changed. A flurry of Zoom calls and casual clothes ensued.

Yet, despite a new “commute” of walking to the spare bedroom, like millions of others, the pair feel torn about their new-found time at home.

“I’m working longer hours with fewer breaks and less social interaction,” says  Chipperfield. “I’m starting earlier and typically finishing later. You just find yourself sitting there and the hours run away from you.”

This uncertainty about full-time working from home gives some optimism to train and bus companies struggling to adapt to a huge shift in commuter behaviour. 

According to the Office for National Statistics, before the arrival of coronavirus only 5pc of Britons regularly worked from home. By June 14 last year, 49pc had done so in the previous week and this remained at 40pc for the week ending Dec 6.

Some have labelled these commuters the "Covid aristocracy" – workers who don't need to leave the house to do their jobs. But does the arrival of a Covid-19 vaccine spell the beginning of the end of this radical change in behaviour? 

Commuters have saved too much

One reason rail and bus travel may never go back to the way it was is that commuters have saved too much money.

A commuter travelling from Reading to London, for example, would spend £4,736 on an annual rail season ticket.

Those prices are due to increase again soon, with fares set to rise by 2.6pc from March 1, one percentage point above the Retail Price Index figure to which they are pegged. 

Yet since the arrival of the pandemic, many workers have not spent a penny on travelling to work, or have dramatically reduced their spending to just one or two tickets a week.

Hurst sums up the mood of many commuters. “The price of a season ticket is just disgusting and they’ve put it up every single year by 3pc and I see no improvement in the service.

“It just isn’t good enough to pay £4,000 and if I miss one train I have to wait half an hour for another one.”

Are we moving to a hybrid model of working?

One of the few good things that have come from the pandemic is that people - and, crucially, their bosses - realise they no longer need to be stuck on a train or bus for five days a week to earn a living.

“I definitely think the hybrid model is the way forward,” says Richard Cresswell, director of London recruitment business Health Recruit Network.

“Working in the office is important because of that face-to-face interaction with people, for people’s mental wellbeing, but also it helps with training and developing people.

“At the same time, I think working from home you can get more done because you can focus.”

Indeed, bosses anticipate as many as a quarter of British employees could end up working from home for good, according to a survey by Deloitte.

This change presents a huge challenge to train and bus operators. The average days a week a rail commuter expects to work from home post-lockdown has risen from 0.5 to 2.6, according to a survey of 5,618 people conducted by Jacobs in the summer. Office-based clerical workers, the largest rail commuter group, have the largest increase of working from home expectations.

“A lot will depend on what employers do,” says Mike Hewitson, head of policy at passenger watchdog Transport Focus.

“Some employers will use this home-office balance now as a differentiator – ‘come and work for us and you can work from home more’.

“I still think there’s a need for that residual travel into the office as there’s a lot of things post-Covid you will still want to do face to face. But I think the traditional five-day-a-week patterns have broken.”

Commuter camaraderie

Commuting has long had a bad name. Everyone has heard the urban legends of people who get the same train every day throwing Christmas parties in “their” carriage, but evidence of this is thin on the ground.

“Social interaction is pretty low on most commuter trains,” says commuter Chipperfield. “You just see a wall of papers and phones.”

Hurst adds: “No one would talk to anyone unless they already know each other.”

This appears to be true even for commuter services designed specifically for people who work at the same business. Sam Ryan is a co-founder and chief executive of Zeelo, a shared bus company that carries 100,000 commuters each month mainly around Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham. 

It designs its bus routes with employers using anonymised data on where people live to pick up staff near their home, then takes them to workplaces that are poorly served by public transport.

He says: “We have done a lot of analysis on how a bus fills up and everybody on every single attempt does their best not to sit next to somebody until they really have to. The vehicles fill up from the back left and the back right to the front left and to the front right, with nobody filling in a middle seat. 

“Everybody then puts down a bag next to them until the point they really have to move it. The vast majority of people plug in and they don’t talk to anybody. They listen to something, they watch something, they scroll social media and they sleep.”

'Covid Aristocracy' may not return

At the start of the pandemic, it quickly became clear the bus and train industries were facing their deepest crisis ever.

“Passenger numbers dropped to about 10 to 15pc in rail and down to about 20pc in bus,” says Katy Taylor, chief strategy and customer officer at Go-Ahead Group, which runs train operators GTR and Southeastern, as well as a number of regional bus companies.

“When we came out of lockdown those numbers crept up. In bus, we got to about 60pc before the second lockdown. In rail, those numbers never really got above 35pc.”

According to Taylor, bus users tend to be more blue-collar workers who travel shorter distances to jobs that require them to be in the workplace. Rail, she says, is “heavily skewed” towards city workers and people with office jobs who could more easily work from home.

She adds: “We term them the 'Covid Aristocracy' because these are people who are still fully paid and working but have fairly nice houses, have a comfortable working environment and didn’t need to go into the office. They are quite able to work from home and if they needed to travel for leisure, they would jump in the car.”

With rising ticket prices and greater availability of technology at home, the shift to working away from the office had already started before the pandemic, just much more slowly. Part-time working and self-employment have increased by over a third in 22 years. The Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operators across the country, has recorded a corresponding fall in season ticket journeys over the past decade as more people want to travel flexibly – from 45pc of all journeys in 2009/10 to 32pc in 2019/20. 

“We might well end up with this concept of a discretionary commuter,” says Mike Hewitson of Transport Focus. “In the past you were fairly captive. Your boss said you had to be at your desk by 8am or 9am, you got on a train and you went there.

“Now you might think ‘I could work two days in the office this week or I could work one’ so train companies need to start looking at how they can encourage people to go in two days a week instead of one.”

Is Covid causing Carmaggeddon?

So what does this mean for the car? If people are making fewer journeys to the workplace – and with concerns over the safety of public transport since the start of the pandemic – is car use set to shoot up?

More than half of UK drivers (57pc) say having access to a car is more important than before the pandemic, with reluctance to use public transport in the future at its highest level in 18 years, according to research for the RAC. 

“There was some quite unhelpful messaging from the Government about avoiding public transport,” says Katy Taylor of Go-Ahead Group.

“People were encouraged to use private cars and car traffic went up to over 100pc post lockdown in a way that never happened for public transport. So there’s a real danger of a car-led recovery.”

Sam Ryan of bus-sharing company Zeelo says: "I fear that in five years’ time we are going to see a significant increase in car usage. I do think that the Government’s obsession with electric cars is dangerous. Yes electric cars are more friendly to the environment, but they doesn’t solve the other problems that cars create – congestion and the need for car parking.”

Zeelo aims to replace single-use car journeys by picking staff up by bus close to their homes and dropping them off at their workplace.

“We’re trying to replace single-occupancy car journeys,” says Ryan. “Many people feel like that’s the safest way to travel and we’re going to end up with Carmaggedon.”

Yet the pandemic has also given Britons the opportunity to break away from their reliance on cars. Provisional estimates show motor vehicles travelled 288.7 billion miles in Britain for the year ending September 2020 – a fall of 18.9pc, which is the largest decline since quarterly records started in 1994. 

Cycling nation?

The upheaval of Covid has prompted many to look at their own fitness. The Department for Transport has pledged to spend £2bn on cycle lanes across the country over the next five years to encourage people to ditch their cars. Nearly a third of Britons gained weight during the first lockdown, according to a study by Kings College London and the health company Zoe.

For many, it seems the commute actually played an integral part in their health.

“I think during lockdown my health definitely declined,” says business owner Richard Cresswell, whose commute involved a walk to Teddington station and then a “Boris bike” to the City from Waterloo. “I was eating more bad stuff and drinking more alcohol and not exercising really.”

The idea of getting Britons to cycle or walk more runs into two obvious problems: distance and the weather.

“I think the Government is a bit naive to think everyone is going to cycle and walk to work,” says Sam Ryan of Zeelo. 

“We live in a country that has pretty bad weather for a number of months every year.”

Mike Hewitson, from Transport Focus, says: “If people are living closer to where they work than before - and by that I mean some businesses moving out of city centres - then I think you’ve got scope for some bicycle commuting but it’s largely a distance thing.

“There’s a distance people will cycle to get to work and a distance they will catch the train. It rather depends on how big a shift we get in working places and working patterns.”

Move the office closer

Some employers could take the office to employees. IWG, the parent company of shared office brands Regus and Spaces, is ploughing £306m into new forms of “hybrid” workspaces, including suburban “hubs” for teams from larger companies in out-of-town locations, reducing the need to commute to city centres. 

The company has its eye on more than 30 locations over the next two years – and with working from home arrangements not ideal for many, they could offer a “third way”.

“I feel the biggest attraction will be big companies, who will take 50 desks for their employees who are living in the outskirts of cities so they don’t have to travel inside,” says Maarten Jamin, chief design officer of IWG. 

“It’s very much corporate. In an ideal world they will be in a suburban area close to a railway station so there is easy traffic in and out, and close to living areas so that people can commute to these locations very easily. 

“It could be an old shopping centre where there are a lot of vacancies at the moment and the parking lot is half unused. Or it could be an old factory on an industrial estate.”

With many people working from home at kitchen tables or on their bed, the idea of a local office that cuts out public transport has its merits.

“The main thing that I think doesn’t work about working from home is being in your house,” says Cresswell.

“Just being able to get out of your house, even if it’s just down the road to a local service office would be a big help.”

Yet the pandemic has also changed where people aim to live, which could make the idea of local offices in suburban areas less achievable. In September, the Office for National Statistics published data revealing that, of those planning to work from home all or part of the time, 12pc have considered moving to a different location, with rural or coastal areas the most common. That could mean the commute gets longer for many people, instead offering an opportunity for long distance train operators.

Bob Powell, customer proposition director at Avanti West Coast, which runs the West Coast Main Line, says: “With the Covid-19 pandemic driving the ability to work from anywhere, we could see people making longer journeys to and from their workplace – travelling a greater number of miles but less frequently.”

Time to innovate

It is possible the death of the train and bus may be greatly exaggerated. A drastic reduction in commuter numbers –even with the decline in revenues that would entail – might paradoxically allow the train companies to invest more, and improve the experience on board.

Katy Taylor, of Go-Ahead Group, says: “A lot of the cost of transport – especially on train but bus as well – goes into addressing the peaks.

“If half those people are not travelling on that given day because they’re working from home and, say, a quarter of the rest of them don’t need to be in at 9am, that reduces the number of vehicles and people you need to run those services, which means you could deploy them elsewhere. 

“So you could run more services later at night or earlier so that people can use public transport as a real viable alternative to the car.”

The need to attract commuters may also spark innovation on things like ticket prices – long a source of great anger for commuters. 

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has written to all train operators asking them to draw up plans for flexible season tickets so people working partly from home can buy discounted bulk tickets. The final decision on pricing and ticket flexibility rests with the Government, and is clearly the source of some friction with operators. 

Robert Nisbet, from the Rail Delivery Group, says: "We know that people’s working patterns were changing before the pandemic and that lockdown restrictions have accelerated this trend, so new ticket types are needed. 

“We submitted our proposals on flexible tickets for commuters in July, and we’re keen to work with the government to introduce them as soon as possible."

The pressure to improve services is not limited to trains. Buses will also have to get better to keep commuters happy – and the impetus may actually come from businesses.

The US tech sector shows how this could work. The “Google Bus” in Silicon Valley, a private bus network owned and managed by employers, came about because staff were unhappy at sitting in traffic for two hours every day from San Francisco and San Jose to Silicon Valley. With tech companies wanting staff to come into the office, they decided to pay for Wi-Fi enabled buses with tables so employees can start their day on the “workbus”. 

“I think this is the start of commuting as a benefit,” says Ryan of shared-bus company Zeelo. “This might be the point where the commute becomes the responsibility – both in terms of planning and the financial burden – of the employer.”

A useful commute

The example of Google Bus shows that the commute – the time between home and work – can actually be beneficial. 

“I’m probably working harder than I’ve ever worked before because, now I’m in that work-at-home mindset, it’s easier to log on over the weekend and at night,” says business owner Richard Cresswell.

“The commute creates that clear cut off, where work’s work and home’s home. Now it’s really blurred and more muddled.”

A lot of the appeal of commuting depends on your age, adds Cresswell.

“If you’re a younger person at the start of your career, then they do want to be in the office. But for people who have got a family, then I think working from home is definitely more attractive.”

Mike Hewitson, of Transport Focus, is not convinced the commute, in itself, has benefits.

“I haven’t seen a 'save our commute' pressure group set up,” he said. “It’s not the act of commuting but the social aspect of being in an office.

“It’s the friendships, the conversations that spark new ideas. It’s the face-to-face interaction in a meeting that Zoom can’t always match. There’s just something about being in a meeting with other people sometimes. Human beings are gregarious by nature, so I think that’s why we’re more likely to have some sort of hybrid.”

Katy Taylor, of Go-Ahead Group, thinks commuting has an unnecessarily bad reputation.

“Commuting is such a negative word. It’s something you’re forced to do because you choose to live further out of London or a big city and it’s considered quite a bad thing. I think coming out of this people have started recognising there’s quite a lot of joy in going somewhere else to do your work.”

The future of the commute

Hewitson thinks the opportunities for change over the next five years are limited.

“The inside of a train is quite hard to change,” he says. “It will be a question of whether it’s a nicer experience because fewer people are travelling. And wouldn’t it be nice if it was a surprise that it’s late?”

Could business models like Zeelo’s, where employers provide a bespoke commuter service for their staff, take off? 

Co-founder Sam Ryan says: “If I was a boss of one of these rail companies, I would be really worried because what those companies have to do is adapt very quickly and what these companies aren’t geared up to do is adapt quickly. They are at the hands of the regulator and they are at the hands of the unions who represent their workforce. If you’re a rail operator, you’re also at the hands of the infrastructure your rolling stock rolls on every day.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the railways end up becoming nationalised,” says Richard Cresswell. “They’re not going to be profitable in this climate but we need trains so maybe the Government will be forced to nationalise them.”

Katy Taylor, of train operator Go-Ahead Group, does not agree. “I think it’s fairly unlikely,” she says. “The reason you have a private company do it is they’re generally more efficient and they’re focused on the customer.”

Taylor believes passenger volumes could return to 100pc in rail over a couple of years, and maybe as quickly as 18 months on buses once the pandemic is over. How does she think the commute will look in five years?

“I hope it will be more comfortable,” she said. “I hope it will be more pleasant. I hope it will be something people will talk about – maybe not like the golden era of rail – but they’ll talk about how amazing it is that we have this public transport network that carries you where you want to go at a reasonable price and it’s so comfortable, and you can do so many other things while you’re on the train. I hope people will talk like that. But we’ve got to do quite a lot to get there.

“I hope this has been the wake up call to the industry to say ‘we have to really attract people back. We have to really go out there and make it better so that people will use rail’.

“Otherwise we’re going to become irrelevant and I think that would be really sad.”

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