Extended Excess Commuting: A Measure of the Jobs-Housing Imbalance in Seoul

The balance between jobs and housing has received considerable attention in the recent debates over sustainable urban development. The excess commuting technique, which measures the difference between the average observed commute and the average minimum commute, has been suggested as one means to identify the numerical imbalance between workplaces and residential locations. This paper extends the conventional approach through the development of an extended excess commuting technique, which can measure both the quantitative and qualitative imbalance. The empirical results show that commuters in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) have tried to reduce both qualitative and quantitative imbalance based on time rather than distance over the past 10 years (1990-2000). The results show how the spatial processes of decentralisation have been countered by the economic processes of faster travel, and how the net result is a saving in the journey to work travel time.