What percent of the time do you spend traveling?

[indigo_rose99]

So when someone says that they "travel 50% of the time", what is the denominator in that percentage? Is it the total number days? Or just weekdays? Or just business days?

I've always guessed that the numerator is the # of days either getting on a plane, getting off a plane, and/or actual days away. Should weekends away be counted among these? I feel like they should be, because days away from home is... well, days away.

So if I am traveling on a Friday and leave the other city at about 8pm, but do not arrive home until about 4:30am on Saturday, does that count as one day in the numerator, or two days?

I met a guy recently who said that he travels about 75% of the time. Most weeks his job has him leaving early every Monday morning and flying back home late every Thursday night. If the numerator is the four days of the week he is traveling/working and the denominator is the seven days of the week, wouldn't that be 4/7 = 57%? But perhaps he was just counting the business days in his denominator, which would be 4/5 = 80%. And since he doesn't travel like that every single week, thus the round down to 75%?

One of the easy ways to lie with statistics is by trying to convince people with percentages, yet not make clear what the denominator represents. So, what do you think the denominator in x% of travel represents?

Comments

[tiger-stripes.livejournal.com]

R says he counts weeks (because he does 4 day engagements).

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

When I used to advise probation workers how to fill out their paperwork for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, I would explain it like this:

First pretend that a full-time work week is forty hours.

Now figure out the average number of hours each person works on project X (travelling, in your case). Add up those numbers. Divide that sum by forty hours. That's the number we actually want when we ask how many people are working on project X.

Based on that, I would say to pretend that a work week is 40 hours. Calculate how many hours you are waiting for a plane, on a plane, or out of town, but do not count packing or driving to the airport from home. Take those hours and divide by 40 and that's the percentage. Of course my method might give you 112%, but that's what it feels like, right?

If someone else gives you that number, you should ask them.