Is commuting a daily behaviour? Rhythmic evidence in France, as of 2019

Home-to-Work (H2W) commuting travel, together with urbanization and transport networks, have seen significant development since the end of the 19th century in both workers’ lives and transport network traffic. The attraction of metropolitan areas and the ease of transport have even triggered long-distance commuting, sometimes in conjunction with overnighting practices that extend the commuting tours (or cycles) beyond the single day level. Based on the French nationwide household travel survey of 2019, this article gives a comprehensive description of commuting practices across origin-destination distances and over time, as experienced by individual workers at the monthly level. Commuting rhythms are characterized in terms of commuting cycle length in days and monthly frequency. Four typical patterns are identified: namely bi-daily, full daily, mono-daily and overnighting. Their respective shares are measured in the statistical populations of (i) workers, (ii) days of life or just at work, (iii) distances travelled on modal networks. Elementary discrete-choice models of H2W rhythm choice are designed and estimated, revealing the influence of travel impedance in terms of time and distance at the level of one-way trips for short-range H2W commuting and at the level of monthly budgets for long-range H2W commuting. Lastly, the shares of commuting trips in modal traffic on road and rail networks are measured, highlighting the significant impact of long-distance commuting on transport-related GHG emissions.