(Yicai Global) July 29 -- Commuting times for urban inhabitants in China are getting longer, with some now having to put up with ‘extreme commuting’ of more than an hour each way, according to a new report.

Just 51 percent of city dwellers worked within 5 kilometers of home last year, and over 14 million had extreme commutes of more than 60 minutes, according to the report, jointly released today by a Housing Ministry think tank, the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, and Baidu Maps.

The report found the average commuting distance in China’s four first-tier cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen -- was 9.4 kilometers in 2021, up by 0.4 kilometer from the previous year. In Beijing, the average distance was the greatest at 11.3 kilometers, 0.2 kilometer more than the year before.

In Beijing, a city of 20 million people, more than 6 million faced an extreme commute every day, accounting for 30 percent for the first time.

The situation is also getting worse in Guangzhou. The proportion of 45-minute or less travel times there has fallen 6 percentage points in three years, from 75 percent to 69 percent, the biggest decline among the four megacities.

But times in Shenzhen and Shanghai appear to be improving. Extreme commuting accounted for just 12 percent of all in Shenzhen last year. In Shanghai, the situation has become steadily better, with a decline of over 1.5 million extreme commuters from 2020. The average one-way commute in Shanghai fell by 2 minutes to 40 minutes between 2019 and last year.

Among the urban inhabitants enduring extreme commutes, nearly 6 million were young people, accounting for more than 40 percent.

In Beijing, 26 percent of young people commute for more than 60 minutes. The figure is 13 percent in Shanghai, and 10 percent in Guangzhou. That means most young workers can travel within 45 minutes. Even in Beijing, nearly 60 percent of young people commute in 45 minutes or less.

To free up more time for life and work, young people are eager to improve their journey times, Fu Lingfeng, a data expert at the Traffic Research Institute of the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, told Yicai Global.

The research report covered 44 cities, with 215 million residents and 105 million urban workers between September and November last year.

Editors: Shi Yi, Tom Litting