Public transit commuters more likely to want to work from home

Almost 2 million commuters in the Netherlands say they want to continue to work from home a few days a week or even full-time. Remarkably, those who use public transport for their commute are more likely to want to work from home than car commuters, Newcom found in a survey of 6,400 adult Netherlands residents, AD reports.

About 1.9 million commuters have no plans to return to the office full-time. Some 1.5 million want to work from home a few days a week, and about 500 thousand don't want to go into the office at all. 

Public transit commuters, in particular, prefer to work from home, with over two-thirds saying they don't want to go back to the office full-time. 200,000 train commuters said they want to commute less permanently. The same applies to 140,000 workers who take the bus, tram, or subway. When it comes to driving to work, only 55 percent of car commuters want to work from home on a structural basis. 

According to the Newcom researchers, more train commuters want to continue working from home because their travel time is longer than that of car commuters on average. 

About 40 percent of all Dutch employees want to work from home permanently - only slightly less than the 54 percent of employees who worked from home due to the pandemic. The researchers expect that this will have a significant impact on traffic.

Pre-pandemic, NS transported 1.3 million travelers a day. If that is 200,000 less, especially in rush hour, the rail company can use its equipment much smarter. On the road, 8 percent fewer cars can cut traffic jams by half, according to data from the Ministry of Infrastructure at the end of 2020.