Super commuter

A super commuter is a person who works in the central county or downtown core of a metropolitan area and resides outside that metropolitan area.[1]

In major North American and European cities, housing prices downtown are so high that some workers can only afford to live in smaller cities or towns outside the city where they work. Super commuters travel long distances, either daily, or once or twice a week between home and workplace either by air, rail, bus, and sometimes also by car, or a combination of modes.[2]^:1 Often, super commuters spend most of the work week in the city their office is based, returning home on weekends.

Super commuters are generally younger in age than average workers, and tend to be from a middle class background.[1][3] They are not elite business travellers; they try to cut their costs by taking benefit of higher wages in one region and lower housing and transportation costs in the smaller city they come from.

A 2012 study by New York University’s Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management showed that Manhattan alone has existing population of 59,000 super commuters.[4] According to studies conducted in NYU there is great upsurge in this trend and 8 out of 10 of the major metropolitan areas in the U.S show similar findings.

Megan Bearce, a marriage and family therapist and author of the book named “Super Commuter Couples: Staying Together When A Job Keeps You Apart”[5] refers that there were an estimated 3.42 million full time workers who were super commuters in 2012 in the U.S The phenomenon has been getting increasing coverage on media.[6][7][8][9] With the surge in demand, businesses are starting to cover the supply; recently, a travel company has claimed that it is going to provide services to super commuters to make their life easier.[10]