(Yicai) Aug 18 -- The commuting time for workers in major cities did not increase last year thanks to effective local transport systems, according to a new official report.  

Newly employed young people under the age of 25 in the three megacities of Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing had one-way commutes of over 10 kilometers on average last year, while for 10 percent of them it was over 25 kilometers, said the report, which was jointly released by a number of agencies under the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of China. 

It also noted that 14 percent of new working youths in Beijing commuted more than 25 kilometers and for 27 percent their journeys took more than one hour.

The report looked at 45 cities in China that provide rail transit services, studying the average daily commute distance and time for residents in these cities.

According to the report, only 50 percent of the people in the 45 cities last year had a commute of five kilometers or less, and more than 14 million people still face long journeys to work of over an hour. However, among the eight megacities with a population of more than 10 million, except for Wuhan in central China, the proportion of office workers with a commuting time of more than 60 minutes in the other seven cities did not increase.

The report said the relatively stable commuting time in major cities was partly down to urban rail transit systems.

Fu Lingfeng, one of the authors of the report and director of the Data Application and Innovation Center of the Transportation Research Branch of the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, said in an interview with Yicai that the average commuting time for people in ultra-large cities decreased in 2022, and it remains to be seen whether the distance between residence and work will be relatively stable in the coming years.

“The radius of commuting space depends on local public transport capacity,” Fu said. “For example, the commuting radius brought by the subway is about 30 to 35 kilometers, and regional rail can increase this radius to 50 to 80 kilometers.”

Editors: Tang Shihua, Tom Litting