Europe

11301 readers

967 users here now

News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.

(This list may get expanded as necessary.)

Posts that link to the following sources will be removed

on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons), archive:is,ph,today (their JS DDoS websites)
on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
on Hungary: Euronews

Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com

(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)

Ban lengths, etc.

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the admin that applied the rule (check modlog first to find who was it.)

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

federalreverse@feddit.org

poVoq@slrpnk.net

anzo@programming.dev

EuroMod@feddit.org

207

Average one-way commuting time from home to work in Europe (upload.wikimedia.org)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org to c/europe@feddit.org

72 comments fedilink hide all child comments

This map shows the average commuting time from home to work in Europe.

(Author: Maps.interlude, Link to image information and dfferent resolutions )

It might be surprising that, in spite of wildly different traffic systems and large differences in the use share of cars, these times are so similar.

An explanation is given in the wikipedia article on Marchetti's Constant. Basically, the time spent commuting is mostly an anthropological constant, and is largely independent of means of transport and culture.

In other words, if we use faster means of transport, we almost automatically commute larger distances - regardless whether this improves our quality of life or not.

This relationship should probably be central in modern traffic planning, but it is often not considered. (There is an interesting article in German by the traffic scientist Rudolf Pfleiderer, titled "Das Phänomen Verkehr", which describes in more detail the relationships between traffic, speed, and distance - perhaps somebody knows a good English article?)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Well, US-Americans use almost exclusively cars, and we know well that cars are inefficient, especially in densely populated areas.

One aspect that also causes these distortions is that Americans cannot freely chose the most efficient means of transport for a specific journey, but are bound to using cars because of political influences. You could say that Americans are less free than other people, in this respect.

(And that's an anomaly, not the cultural norm for humans).

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

So not 1000s of years & USA doesn't fall within the "constant commute budget" ("is an anomaly") bcs it has 10pp more cars compared to EU?
(Also I wasn't saying USA is an outlier, I was saying even it has vastly divergent "constant commute time budgets" depending on location, so it's def not a constant. If anything an upper/max tolerance.)

(Even the top countries in this list don't have the commute times of USA average.)

I'm just saying that the "Marchetti's constant" is a figurative idea meant to not be taken as a whole, but merely a consideration for mid-term behaviour changes in context city planning/changes.
Only a fraction of the ppl would commute if not necessary (but it acts like a time budget depending on the need to work at specific places vs wanting or having to live in a certain zone).

No. The human commuting time is constant, probably since thousands of years.

This is what I'm questioning.
It's not even constant now or in any moment of humanity with commutes.

Am I missing something that you were trying to say?

Eg of how the not-constant changes: