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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.html)

We see a lot of complaints about traffic conditions and how it is ruining the quality of life. Bangalore gets a lot of criticism for the traffic problems and deservedly so. I am just wondering what significant measures some of you have taken to minimise your exposure to the traffic menace.

In my case it is the very obvious. I limited myself to only companies and schools that are close to my home. Soon I started working from home on my own projects obviously not to avoid traffic but it's an incentive to nudge me in this direction. I live in the north part of Bangalore which has fewer choices in terms of companies and schools but still I never found myself lacking choice. Even for healthcare/dental, etc. even though we had very trusted clinics we used to visit, we have actively looked for nearby places and after few trial and errors we found the right places.

Not sure if it is a coincidence, but all my friends fall into the same category except a couple of them who have to live with parents, etc. First I thought it could be that I am in my early 40s so I have some savings, career karma, etc. to pick and choose but even the young folks who I was managing almost always stayed close to work (in fact, I envied them for their no-strings-attached situation).

Would love to read about your experiences.

When I was in business I set up my head office within 3 kms of home. One of the few advantages of being self employed. :-) Similarly put kids into whatever good schools were within 3 to 4 kms of home to save ourselves the hassles of traffic. When I was young for a year I endured the local trains of Mumbai with my office at Flora Fountain. I decided then that as I am not destined to be the Chairman of a giant corporate there is no sane reason to endure a harrowing commute.

My Managing Partner and I car pool together.
Our office is 10Kms away. We leave by 7:30AM in the morning to beat the traffic and leave office by 4PM. Even then typical commute time varies between 35-45Mins.

Any work related travel within Bangalore is usually with cabs to avoid the stress of driving.

If I'm stuck at any choke-point for more than 10 minutes, I never take that road again. Ever. So what I do is study the road network near choke-points and take alternative routes via residential areas. This is called RAT RUNNING, which is apparently frowned upon in many developed countries.

Route that everybody takes:



Route that I take:



If such opportunities are not available, I take the longer route. Or a road that takes a longer time. Basically, when I'm commuting within the city and I know the area well, I don't exactly follow Google Maps. I take the route that keeps me on the move.

I start my office early at 8.30 AM and leave by 5 PM. For city commute I use motorcycle/cycle whenever possible.

My significant measure:
1. I work from home at least once a week, at times the whole week. :D
2. Encourage my teams to work from home whenever possible.
3. Anything in the vicinity of 1-2 Kms from home, i walk.

Another important thing:

- i pick and drop my co-workers, as much as possible (not the quick ride type, but as a service).

These days I have two days a week WFH.

Earlier, I used to use a bit more of ride-sharing, but have reduced it considerably in recent times (I see lesser rides being offered, I am not too fond of waiting for people when I do the offering!).

I still do car-pooling but strictly with people I am familiar with already.

On the days I can wear a dark t-shirt to work, I don't mind taking the two-wheeler. I have developed an aversion to the smoke/dust/noise/etc that the two-wheeler exposes me to.

I cannot yet move from my rental place since it is in a location that allows both my wife and me to have a decent commute. Throw in the creche/daycare - but that's relatively a easier problem to solve.

I am also considering a 4X4 off-road capable ride for use in the B'lore city - It appears to warrant that! Make every drive an off-roading-equivalent adventure!

I have a small business and had one person who looked after a certain area of my business. I used to look at the other part. So for that purpose my monthly fuel expenditure used to come around Rs 10,000.
Six months back i appointed another person to look after the area i used to go. Instead of paying the fuel bill, i pay him the salary now. It reduced my monthly running by approximately 1,000 km!

Result - Drive less and sleep more in the morning. :D

Whenever possible,

a) Work from home; although, I've had the ability to do so in only one out of the last three assignments
b) Find options closer home: be it restaurants or entertainment (movie hall)
c) Uber it if the commute is in peak hour traffic
d) Car pool to work; although I prefer providing it than traveling in someone else's car

e) Ironic as this may be, I often take a much longer route to work just to get there faster
f) Change my travel timings to avoid rush hour traffic

* g) Avoid it all together. Doesn't work with work though :D
** h) Take public transport. Doesn't apply in Pune.

I see a growing number of people changing their travel patterns significantly (including avoiding it altogether) of late.

I hope you're referring to the speed-breakers and craters on the road, not creating new roads where you find some space.

Switched to driving my WeGo scooter to work.

Aha, so now we know the secrets to those awesome photos you post here and there on the forum! Always looks forward to them. Beautiful.

There are all the words there but just in a marginally different order - "the speed-breakers and craters on the road" ---> the roads among speed-breakers and craters!

Yea, I'm not an off-roader at heart, just for the compulsion part of it. Can recall one instance of breaking the rule and the cop was super-duper nice to me when I explained why I did what I did (very genuine and heart-felt)! Beautiful man, he was.

Apart from Work-From-Home that my role and organization offers, the best way I have been managing the show is not by minimizing my daily commute but rather minimizing the time spend on a usually long commute - Drive early and reach early! So, I am the one to pick up that newspaper and milk packet at the office's doorstep before I punch my ID card, LOL!!

Its hard to believe but I take 50 minutes for 38 Kms commute for my Onward and at max 70-75 minutes for a 57 Kms commute in return and I really do not have anything to crib about.

I get so irritated even if I am running 5 minutes late, especially in the morning as I get to meet few more who would leave at that time and I start spotting company buses.

And this isn't applicable to Bangalore alone. Even when I worked in Pune, I followed the same irrespective of the locality I was staying.

Interestingly my dad decided to move out of Bombay in the 90's and moved to Bangalore since he was tired of commuting in the local trains :). From commuting 35 kms one way everyday in trains, to commuting about 6 kms by car in the Bangalore of the nineties was a huge luxury.

Cut to 2016 and the 6 kms drive each way was becoming more and harrowing with every passing year. So we moved the office to a bungalow in the neighborhood (exactly 0.8kms from home). We actually moved just to cut the commute and use the time to be more productive. But there have been several other advantages which we never thought we were missing out on.

• Reduced stress levels since you have more time for work and more time for family.
• The air quality is so much better. We don't feel the need for air conditioners even in summer and never even bothered to install one. We can actually hear the birds chirping :D
• Luxury of being available for your family whenever required. And with small kids, it can be very often.
• Unbelievably low rentals is the icing on the cake.

We also decided to send our kids to the nearby school and not to some fancy school 10 kms away. All our needs are met in this little hamlet of North Bangalore and we hardly step out of a 2 km radius on weekdays (Mon to Sat) and max about 7~ 8 km radius on a Sunday. In fact some of our staff too have moved to within walking distance of our office and they couldn't be happier. What a life transforming decision it has been!

Of course being self employed allows you to take such decisions and then again not all entrepreneurs can move their work place wherever they want!

Since my wife and I work in the same area, we commute together. On days when we leave early, or on rainy days, we take the car. If we're leaving post-8 am we take the bike. If it's raining and we're late (always a recipe for 'disaster-level' Bangalore traffic), we work from home. :)

As our wonderful Bellandur-ORR region is traffic-locked between 4pm and 8pm almost all weekdays, we make it a point to leave for home only after that. She goes to a gym near her office, I go for a run around the lake behind my office campus or use the campus gym. When a movie we'd like to watch releases, we watch it on some weekday at the mall in between both our workplaces.

It's fortunate we have the luxury of doing this, I really don't know how we would manage if we had children. Then I guess wading through the traffic at peak times would be the only option so we could spend enough time with them at home.

Looks like this thread in going BLR centric :), let me add a view from Pune.

My workplaces are mostly away from home & with most SEZs located further away, my commute distance has been increasing since last decade. As a result, my start time in mornings has shifted from 8:30am to 7am. And to save few more minutes in commuting, I use bike in non-monsoon season.