The commute test: time real journeys before booking a new launch

A map app says the school run from a new launch takes fifteen minutes. It is a Saturday afternoon when you check, you are standing in a sales gallery, and the estimate sounds reassuring. What it cannot tell you is how that journey feels at a quarter to seven on a wet Tuesday, with a school bag, a lift wait and a crossing that takes two light cycles.

Location is one of the things you cannot renovate later. Before you book a unit, it is worth timing the journeys your household will actually repeat, at the hours you would actually make them. This guide sets out a simple commute test, a recording sheet and a way to judge which differences matter.

Choose the journeys that repeat

Start from your household brief rather than the project's location map. If you have not written one, start with a household research brief first. List every journey that happens at least weekly, and who makes it.

For most households, three to five journeys cover the bulk of daily travel:

• The school run, including the return leg if the person doing it then goes on to work.
• Each adult's work journey, at the time they leave, not at a convenient time.
• Visits to grandparents or other family you support, especially if the visit is regular.
• One recurring errand that involves carrying things, such as a weekly grocery shop.
• Any journey made by someone with limited mobility, a pram or a child travelling alone.

Rank them by how often they happen. A journey made ten times a week deserves more testing than one made once a month.

Start from the address, not the station

A new launch is usually a construction site, so you cannot leave from your future front door. Pick the nearest public point to where you understand the pedestrian entrance will be, and write down how you know. If the position of the gates comes from the developer's site plan, record it as a developer representation with the document's date. If you are guessing, say so. Never enter the site or a restricted area to get a closer starting point.

Do not replace the full journey with "near the station". The walk from a block to the gate, then from the gate to the nearest bus stop or station entrance, is part of the commute. So is the walk at the far end. A route that looks short on a map can include a long detour around a fence, a canal or a road without a crossing.

Keep existing transport and future plans apart. Test only what exists today. If a future station, bus service or road has been mentioned, note the source and its stated status separately, and do not add it to your timings.

Time it at the hour you would travel

Travel each priority journey at least twice, on different days, leaving at the time you would really leave. Door-to-door timing matters more than the time in the vehicle, so start the stopwatch when you set off from your starting point and stop it when you arrive at the door of the destination.

Use this recording sheet for each attempt:

• Journey: name it, for example "school run" or "Mum's flat, Wednesday".
• Traveller: who would normally make this trip, and anything they carry.
• Day and departure time: the actual clock time you left.
• Starting point: where you began, and how you judged its distance from the likely entrance.
• Mode: walking, bus, train, car, taxi or cycling, with any changes.
• Door-to-door time: from starting point to destination door.
• Map estimate: the estimate shown for the same route and departure time, noted before you set off.
• Waiting time: at stops, platforms, junctions and lifts.
• Walking legs: approximate minutes, and whether the route is sheltered.
• Friction: stairs, crossings, crowding, fences, a difficult drop-off point.
• Conditions: weather, school holidays, anything unusual that day.
• Confidence: tested once, twice or more; what you could not test.

A pencil and a notebook are enough. The point is a record you can compare later, not precision to the second.

What a map estimate can miss

Map estimates are useful for planning a route. They may not reflect things that shape an ordinary weekday:

• How long you wait at that stop, at that hour, when the first vehicle is full.
• Time inside the development: lift waits, the walk from a tower to the gate, a guardhouse detour.
• Crossings where the pedestrian phase is short or the queue is long.
• The pace of a child, a grandparent or someone pushing a pram.
• Rain. A covered route and an open route may differ little on a map and a great deal in practice.
• Drop-off queues at school gates if you drive.
• The return journey, which can follow a different route or pattern from the outbound one.

Write down the gap between the estimate and your timing for each attempt. A consistent gap tells you something about the route. A gap that varies widely tells you the journey is unpredictable, which can matter more than its average length.

Which differences matter

The following example is fictional and its figures are illustrative, not measurements of any real route.

Aishah and Wei Jie are weighing two projects. For their daughter's school run, a map suggests 15 minutes from Project A and 18 from Project B. On two weekday mornings they record 24 and 31 minutes from A, because of a long wait at one crossing and a full first bus. From B they record 20 and 21 minutes along a route that is sheltered most of the way.

On paper, A looked slightly better. In their test, B was several minutes faster and far more predictable. The school run happens twice a day, five days a week, so if the return leg behaves similarly, an average gap of about seven minutes each way adds up to over an hour a week. The spread matters too: a journey that sometimes takes 31 minutes has to be planned as a 31-minute journey.

Their Wednesday visit to Wei Jie's mother, by contrast, differed by only a few minutes between the two addresses. They noted it and gave it little weight.

When you compare, look at the journeys that repeat most, the worst regular case rather than the best, and the people least able to absorb a bad day. A difference of a few minutes on a monthly trip rarely changes a decision. A daily trip that is unpredictable, exposed or hard for one family member can. Carry these results into a clear project comparison, labelled as your own observations with their dates.

The test has limits. Two attempts cannot capture every season, a school change or a new job, and routes change over the years. A commute test informs your own judgement; it does not settle whether a purchase is right for your finances, which is a question for qualified advisers.

Common questions