COMMB has released a report covering the commuting trends in Canada, an issue of high relevance for the organization’s OOH membership. The report was written by Lara Menzies, COMMB’s director of Marketing & Partnerships, based on statistics supplied from research organizations including Statistics Canada and KPMG.

According to StatsCan, about half of the people who had been working from home during the pandemic have now returned to the office at least part-time. That means about 15.9 million Canadians, or 80% of the workforce, heading back to the office became a captive audience for OOH advertising. That leaves only 12.6% of Canadians working exclusively from home today. In 2016 just 7% of the workforce worked from home, peaking at 24.3% in 2021 before beginning its drop to 20.1% last May.

With the return to office, advertisers once again have ample opportunities for reaching consumers during their daily commutes. The use of personal vehicles and public transportation have both increased. Personal car commuters rose from 24.2%, up 2.6 million, from May 2021 to May 2023. Public transportation use increased 63.6%, up 628,000 over the same period, in urban areas like Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

More than 12 million Canadians commute by car, truck or van according to StatsCan. In Toronto, two-thirds of the workforce still relies on their cars for transportation while half also said their daily commutes involve some form of public transportation. That said, traffic congestion in Toronto ranks third in the world and has increased from 2022 by almost a full minute on average to 29 minutes to travel 10 km in 2023.

According to KPMG, the 5.2% growth in Canadian vehicle sales from 2022 to 2023, combined with the data showing that almost 70% of Canadians are considering vehicle purchases, suggests that roads will likely be busier in a year to come – but for advertisers and the OOH industry that means greater exposure for all out-of-home assets including billboards and bus shelters.