People’s Commuting Habits under the Epidemic

According to the U.S. Overseas Chinese News Network, the lockdown under the new crown epidemic has suspended commuting to work. As the number of daily activities decreases, commuters have saved billions of dollars. And people begin to change their short distance travel ways from driving cars to riding city bicycle or the electric bike. Of course, the government advocates people to use the low-carbon and green travel ways.

In addition, most people usually take vacations in the summer and the number of miles generated by travel will peak, but this summer will be very different. According to data from the US Federal Highway Administration, in June 2020, the number of miles driven by Americans has been decreased by nearly 37 billion miles comparing to the same period in 2019. And most people choose the common bike or common electric bicycle to go out instead of cars.

According to research conducted by the online platform Upwork, most people are used to drive to go to work and get off work before, but now they work at home which help them save a total of US$758 million a day. In the months since the outbreak, this figure has reached 90 billion US dollars. One of the chief economists said that these savings include gasoline costs, car maintenance costs, and the cost of solving the negative impact of driving on society, such as managing traffic congestion and pollution. 

However, in the cost saved, the largest proportion is time cost. The economist pointed out that although it is difficult to calculate the cost of time with figures, but the estimates provided by the Department of Transportation show that the hourly cost of Americans driving to and from get off work is $12.5. And the cost of riding the bike or riding electric bike for short distance travel can be ignored.

Considering Americans' long-distance commuting habits, this time cost will continue to accumulate. According to data, in 2018, Americans spent an average of 54.2 minutes commuting every day. In recent decades, people’s commuting time has continued to increase. Even in high-cost, convenient commuting metropolises such as New York or the San Francisco Bay Area, employees have not shortened their average commuting time. It is worth mentioning that, according to the Upwork report, in the long run, employees living in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania have saved the most time from remote work. The economist said that we will see people moving from areas with higher living costs to areas with lower living costs.

However, continuing to work from home is detrimental to the local economy that supports the previous office environment, because home employees do not need to pay for commuting, and do not need to buy coffee, lunch, etc. near the office area, which will put the basic service industry supporting the office environment at risk. Of course, the bike shops and the bike industry are increasing obviously, and the sales of bike are booming with the increasing of people who choose to ride the bike to go out in daily life.

Cybic Intelligent Technology (Tianjin) Co., Ltd is mainly engaged in bicycle development and trading. We make great efforts to establish long-term cooperation relationship with customers in various countries by distributing bicycle products with the best quality and reasonable price.