How much of your life disappears in traffic?
The daily trip to work feels like nothing. Stacked up, it's measured in years.
A commute is the tax you pay on a job that no one lists on the offer letter. Any single trip is trivial — but multiply it by every working day of a career and it becomes one of the largest single blocks of time in your life, spent in a seat going nowhere you chose.
We spread the calculation over 48 weeks a year to allow for holidays, so the figure errs on the low side. Even so, the total tends to land somewhere between surprising and slightly upsetting.
Questions people ask
What commute time should I enter?+
Your total travel time for a normal working day — both directions added together. If you go there and back in 40 minutes each way, enter 80.
Why 48 weeks a year?+
We knock a few weeks off the full 52 to account for holidays, sick days and public holidays, so the estimate leans conservative rather than alarmist.
Does working from home count?+
Only enter the days you actually travel. If you commute three days a week and work from home the rest, put 3 as your days per week.