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-   -   What significant measures did you take to minimise your daily commute? (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/204524-what-significant-measures-did-you-take-minimise-your-daily-commute-6.html)

When it is urgent or important we have no choice but to go. In other situations I check G Maps and go only if the route is in green or orange. Non urgent things are postponed till the traffic eases. Say getting the car serviced, dental checkup, car WA WB, weekend jolly drives, doctor checkups. We have changed plans of weekend outings based on traffic conditions the moment we see G maps.

I stay 9 kms from work and on holidays and early mornings it takes me around 15 mins and on max traffic times it takes me around 30 mins which I think is fine for 9 kms. I am going to be at this place for 2 years more. I decided at this place based on optimum rent+fuel+ time to commute. The closer you move to office areas the rents shoot up significantly. The further away rents are lower but impacts travel time and fuel costs.

Hello All,

I stay 26 Kms away from work, to avoid traffic snarls, I leave early around 0600 hrs or max by 0615 hrs I reach office in Whitefield, Bangalore within 45-60 minutes. Return I leave by 1430 hrs from Whitefield and reach home before 1600 hrs, As I am in HR function I cant work from home, but still maybe 4-6 working days in a month I WFH. Sanjeev

In a way, yes. But except for the normal office hours, traffic around the area I live in is more during weekends than weekdays. Also the no parking worries in malls/market is a big plus. The less footfalls in malls means no or short billing queue:D.

Significant measures you say? I changed from being an employee to an employer! And i moved my main working base to Guwahati.
As a young sprog, I was working in Bangalore but my office was in the Global Village and my house was in BSK 3rd stage. In the pre NICE road days, my commute was a breeze as i did not go through the outer ring road and Mysore road; i used to take the back road and end up on Uttarahalli road and thus into office. So yeah, i did not have any issues with commute. Then i shifted jobs and my new office was in the RMZ Ecospace. Took all sorts of back routes but they started getting filled up too.
Time passed and now i am my own boss. So my "office" in Bangalore is my residence in BSK. i have just two staff there and they stay close by so no hassles.

I have adopted the same idea in Kolkata; my office is a 15 min walk from my house in New Town, Gurgaon is a similar driving time and in Guwahati where i am now, my office is the 2nd floor of my house! In all cases, my employees live within a km or two as no one wants to come in with a bad mood. There is a good school nearby so my son attends classes there.
If and when i have to go to meetings, i use GMaps live traffic to plot and plan. Sometimes a 7km drive becomes 14km but i arrive in a good mood which is much better than arriving in a foul one and ruin delicate interactions. It also let me have more time to spend with my wife and son and attend to my parents.

I adopted this method to save time because i would rather spend whatever free time i have left with family since 2/3rds of a month on average are spend outside of Guwahati. Of course, it goes without saying that such a scenario is possible more for a self employed person than a salaried one. My wife's office earlier was 4km from home and she used to commute by scooter. Now she has been transferred to a branch 50km away and had to buy a car to cut down on commute times; thankfully, we live close to the NH so her commute is 5km city roads = 25 mins, 35km 4 lane NH= 45 mins and 12 km 2 lane SH = 15 mins. Not bad if i may say so myself.
When i asked her this question, she simply said "make sure the car i buy has an automatic GB and comes in the fully loaded model with voice this and electronic that."

OT: in case anybody is wondering, traffic in Guwahati is absolute rubbish and slowly it is starting to remind me of the snarls in BTM and Silk Board.

I live in Bellandur and travel to Ecity phase 1. My wife travels to CV Raman Nagar.
I have taken the following measures so far:

1. Leave early by 8AM, but that would mean i reach office by 9 which is peak and traffic inside ecity can get horrendous
2. Adopt carpooling. Either share my ride or join someone else's.
3. WFH at least once a week.
4. Ride to work. Gets very dusty and tricky Bangalore weather can throw nasty surprises.

And, nothing has helped. Now, I have just about given up. I leave at 8-9 and take a longer route (20KM Elevated flyover instead of the 8KM shorter route), it takes about an hour on average and guess what, this is much better than other dreadful routes in Bangalore. God help the commuters when the metro work begins on this stretch.

P.S: Shifting to another place is not an option as my Wife works in CV Raman nagar which makes Koramangala the only sensible place to stay and it wouldn't get significantly better.
Shifting my job is also not an option as of now, may consider after some time.

I use my 2-wheeler 100% during my commutes to office to ensure I do not waste time in traffic snarls. If its raining cats and dogs, I do a work-from-home. My car is meant to be used only on weekends for grocery shopping or visit to friends with family or during road trips.

Also, I use multiple narrower and lesser taken roads during my office commutes (both to & fro). I have optimized the route so much so that it takes max 40-45 mins to cover 13 Kms in the heart of Bengaluru city. Else it would easily take 1-1.5 hrs if I take the Google route.

I see that so many of us use narrow roads (I called it backroads, Smartcat introduced a more well-known name for that practice by commuters) to avoid traffic.

I also feel sorry for the residents of those areas that we cut through. Those roads weren't built to handle a high pass-through of vehicles and I imagine that the residents would be quite fearful for their safety.

I remember a board put up in a prominent backroad in Connecticut that motorists would take at times during rush hour - "Drive like your kids live here". Quite telling that is.

And I'm also reminded of a distant relative who was killed right outside the doorway of his home because somebody drove by at a high speed through the narrow road his home is located on.

I guess we all owe it to the residents of these areas to drive responsibly, as much as we can.

My neighborhood has very narrow roads. When we built our house in 2003, the traffic there was negligible. One smart chap constructed his house on a disputed plot of land, blocking one end of the lane leading to our road from the main road. At the time we were upset that we were denied a direct route to the main road and had to use perpendicular connecting roads to reach either of the 2 parallel lanes leading to the main road.

Now, 15 years later, the traffic is crazy and those 'back roads' have become heavily used roads to reach the rear entrance of a tech park and other 'developed' areas. And we're blessing that chap for constructing his house where he did! Thanks to him, ours is the only side road that remains traffic free. Ours is one of the few lanes where kids can play on the road safely.

How perspective changes with time and circumstances!

Hahaha, I am in the same boat,
switched from Gurgaon to Okhla,
but I commute from Greater Noida lol:

Most of my commute involves long distances, so I do the following :
-start early to avoid traffic jams, reduce AC usage and hence save fuel.
-use Google map traffic update to plan the commute.
-do big grocery etc. purchase etc to minimise frequent running.

I had more parking woes than commute, I could take two routes to work and both had their share of bottle necks, and I could never shorten my commute from Vashi to Vikhroli.

People working in Godrej Compound would understand the parking woes, I had to park in R City Mall almost every day, some days I would ask my wife to park at her office in Powai.

The solution we got was in company transport, we opted for company transport and gave up driving, It ended up giving us "me-time" during the bus journey where we could plug into our liking of music and doze off for an hour.

After moving to Pune; my struggle continued with daily travel to Hinjewadi; We tried different routes and back-roads, nothing ever worked, and again we restored to company transport to find solace.

I've recently moved into an area very close to my place of work (barely 2kms) and our kid has it even better. He needs to just cross the street to get to school. We were staying a little far away (10kms) about year ago and boy what a huge difference it makes! My family and I get to a lot of things we missed out then (exercise, sleep, new hobbies) and some days it is just the sheer pleasure of walking to my workplace that makes it worth.

Speaking from Hyderabad,

After commuting through the insane Hyderabad traffic for over 3 years, I shifted from my own home in Kompally (which was 24 kms from my and my wife's Office in Hitec City) to a rented place from where my office is 3kms and my wife's office is 2 kms. My daughter's school is just across the street.

I have never had more time for exercise, hobbies and quality time with family. Thanks to my wife for prodding my lazy bum into making this switch.

Following points from my side on reducing my time driving on roads:-

1.) I have started using Uber more for the crowded shopping areas.
2.) Metro station is just walking distance from my house, so using that as well if destination does not involve any line changes.
3.) I use GMaps just prior leaving home to check the traffic condition and if any alternate routes are available.
4.) I do not mind sharing a ride, in case going in same direction.

I've a commute from Koramangala to Varthur; relocating within Bangalore was not an option for me. I take motorcycle whenever I can; maintained a google sheet tracking hours and timings on various routes and identified the optimal time as 7:00am or 7:45am departure from Koramangala (even by car, less than 1hr during these slots; for all of 14km). Return back at 4:45pm (or 7:30pm if I miss the first slot) and at Marathahalli check google maps for decisioning and I usually get in by 6pm. Data collection happened for 90 days before I figured this out. Evening commute is though sickening with dust and frequent stops.