The research conducted by MeetingZone found that this wasted time was approximately 1.5 million hours per strike day. The results surveyed 1000 London commuters which highlighted that the average person who was delayed took an extra 61 minutes in travel time over the two days of the strikes.
Despite the battle into work for many, the survey highlighted that only 9 per cent of Londoner commuters were ‘allowed’ to work from home by bosses during the two days of travel disruption. Although this week’s strikes have been called off, Londoners may face further misery if a deal isn’t reached between the Unions and London Underground managers, with a further two strikes planned for 8 and 10 September.
The report also found that 66 per cent of Londoners were late during the tube strikes by an average of 38 minutes each day, and almost three quarters of London commuters feel bosses are failing to offer flexible working options during tube strikes.
Nearly half of those surveyed were between 30 minutes – 1 hour late during the travel chaos.
Even though there’s a plethora of communication technologies available and changes have been made to flexible working rules, 72 per cent of London commuters surveyed still felt employers were failing to offer better collaborative and flexible working options amidst the capital’s travel woes.
MeetingZone CEO Steve Gandy, said: “It’s shocking that in this day and age we’re wasting so much time trying to get into the office when we have the technology at our fingertips to make flexible working a reality.
“London commuters have already wasted about an extra hour of time from the recent strikes and with more planned as this dispute continues, it looks like long suffering commuters will have to set their alarms early until this has been resolved.”
The recent strikes, part of an ongoing dispute over plans to introduce 24 hour Tube services at weekends, were the worst since 2002. The entire London Underground network came to a standstill after shutting down on 8-9 July and 5-6 August 2015.
“The tube strikes in London should be the turning point for companies to start thinking about flexible working options to reduce the amount of time commuter’s waste.” concluded Gandy.