Commuting is periodically recurring travel between one's place of residence and place of work or study, where the traveler, referred to as a commuter, leaves the boundary of their home community. Regarding occupation, it is also colloquially called the journey to work. By extension, it can sometimes be any regular or often repeated travel between locations, even when not work-related. The modes of travel, time taken and distance traveled in commuting varies widely across the globe. Most people in least-developed countries continue to walk to work. The cheapest method of commuting after walking is usually by bicycle, so this is common in low-income countries but is also increasingly practised by people in wealthier countries for environmental and health reasons. In middle-income countries, motorcycle commuting is very common.
The next technology adopted as countries develop is more dependent on location: in more populous, older cities, especially in Eurasia mass transit (rail, bus, etc.) predominates, while in smaller, younger cities, and large parts of North America and Australasia, commuting by personal automobile is more common. A small number of very wealthy people, and those working in remote locations around the world, also commute by air travel, often for a week or more at a time rather than the more typical daily commute. Transportation links that enable commuting also impact the physical layout of cities and regions, allowing a distinction to arise between mostly-residential suburbs and the more economically focused urban core of a city (process known as suburban sprawl), but the specifics of how that distinction is realized remain drastically different between societies, with Eurasian "suburbs" often being more densely populated than North American "urban cores".
History
The first separation between workplace and place of residence occurred as a result of the invention of the steam railway. The word commuter derives from the early days of rail travel in US cities, such as New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago, where, in the 1840s, the railways engendered suburbs from which travelers paid a reduced or 'commuted' fare into the city. Later, the back formations "commute" and "commuter" were coined therefrom. Commuted tickets would usually allow the traveler to repeat the same journey as often as they liked during the period of validity: normally, the longer the period the cheaper the cost per day.
Before the 19th century, most workers lived less than an hour's walk from their work. The Industrial Revolution brought specialization of work and workplaces, and relocated most paid work from households and rural areas to factories in urban areas. Today, many people travel daily to work a long way from their own towns, cities, and villages, especially in industrialised societies. Depending on factors such as the high cost of housing in city centres, lack of public transit, and traffic congestion, modes of travel may include automobiles, motorcycles, trains, aircraft, buses, and bicycles. Where Los Angeles is infamous for its automobile gridlock, commuting in New York is closely associated with the subway; in London and Tokyo and several European cities, "commuter" is automatically associated with rail passengers. In the near future there may be another move away from the traditional "commute" with the introduction of flexible working. Some have suggested that many employees would be far more productive and live healthier, stress-free lives if the daily commute is removed completely.
Suburbs
Commuting has had a large impact on modern life. It has allowed cities to grow to sizes that were previously not practical, and it has led to the proliferation of suburbs. Many large cities or conurbations are surrounded by commuter belts, also known as metropolitan areas, commuter towns, dormitory towns, or bedroom communities. The prototypical commuter lives in one of these areas and travels daily to work or to school in the core city.
As urban sprawl pushes farther and farther away from central business districts, new businesses can appear in outlying cities, leading to the existence of the reverse commuter who lives in a core city but works in the suburbs, and to a type of secondary commuter who lives in a more distant exurb and works in the outlying city or industrial suburb.
Gender differences
A UK study, published in 2009, found that on average women suffer four times as much psychological stress from their work commute as men do.
Education
Institutions that have few dormitories or low student housing populations are called commuter schools in the United States.