Subway travel time in capital averages 97 minutes

Beijing workers have the longest average commute in China, according to xinhuanet.com.

With a typical journey time of 97 minutes, exhausting trips are the unenviable cost of getting to work, a report by Beijing Normal University showed.

Besides the nation's capital, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen also have average commutes of almost 90 minutes, with residents of Tianjin, Nanjing, Shenyang and Chongqing spending more than 65 minutes traveling from home to work.

In IBM's 2011 Global Commuter Pain Survey, Beijing was named the city with the worst commuting conditions in the world, according to online magazine Smartplanet. Metropolises such as New York, Paris or Los Angeles, didn't even make the top 10.

According to the report, traffic congestion is the most common reason commuters spend so much time on transport.

Many people choose to live in low-budget suburbs but work in the city center, so have to suffer long journeys.

Zhang Xiang, an IT programmer, is a typical commuter. He pays cheaper rent by living in the fifth ring road area of northwestern Beijing but works in the Dongzhimen neighborhood in the second ring road area of the eastern part of the city.

He has to change subway lines four times between home and work. "I live far from my work and it always requires me to work overtime. Work and commuting and sleep all cost time. It's impossible for me to have extra time to do other things, let alone have a girlfriend," he said.