Daylight saving and its delayed sunsets encourages people to stay out later and spend more money, New South Wales government data shows. The data also found more evening light attracts people to public transport and out of their cars.
Conversely, that uptick in mobility almost entirely vanishes in the days after clocks are wound back an hour, as earlier sunsets cut post-work social and economic activity, the data showed.
The contrasts in night-time behaviour are most pronounced between the peaks of summer and winter. However, the data focused on how NSW residents responded to shifting an hour of daylight from the morning to evening and vice versa.
This was done by comparing data from the final week of standard time and first week of daylight saving (which begins in early October) – and the corresponding fortnight six months later, when daylight saving ends in early April. Public holidays were excluded from the data.
In the week beginning 7 April 2024, when daylight saving ended in NSW, there was a 14.8% decrease in night-time trips, down from an average of 450,000 in the final week of daylight saving to 383,000 in the first week without it. Night trips were defined as journeys made between 6pm and 6am on the state’s Opal public transport network.
Over the fortnight, the proportion of night-time tap-offs as a share of total daily tap-offs dropped from 23.6% to 22%.
Night-time movement – based on mobile phone data when people aged 20 and above move to a new location and stay there for at least 15 minutes – dropped by 9.7%, from an average of 5.46m in the final week of daylight saving to 4.93m in the first week without it.
Proportionally, night-time movement activity as a share of all daily movement activity dropped from 30% to 28.3%.
The earlier sunsets also affected economic activity. There was a 12.9% drop in night-time in-person spending at businesses such as restaurants, bars and retail, down from a nightly average of $44.1m in the final week of daylight saving to $38.4m. Over the fortnight, the proportion of night-time spending as a share of spending across the day dropped from 18.5% to 16.5%.
The figures also revealed the reduction in nightly movement, public transport use and spending in the transition out of daylight saving was not made up for by the extra hour of sunlight in the morning.
Instead, there was an overall decrease in mobility, spending and public transport activity across the whole day without daylight saving.
“This analysis underscores daylight saving time’s key role in boosting night-time economic activity and community engagement in New South Wales,” the NSW 24-hour commissioner’s office said.
“The data demonstrates a uniform reduction across the week and across all metrics, indicating that the shift back to standard time (between April and October) broadly diminishes participation in evening activities.”
The report also found that when exiting daylight saving, “this effect is more pronounced on the weekends, suggesting that the reduction in evening daylight hours particularly impacts leisure and social activities that are more common during this time”.
“The impact on public transport usage over the weekend nights is the strongest, suggesting a growing preference to private transport options … as the evening gets darker and colder earlier,” the report said.
By contrast, comparing the weeks either side of 6 October 2024, when daylight saving time resumed, a noticeable uptick in all three activity areas was observed.
Nightly average Opal tap-offs increased by 11.1%, from 400,000 to 445,000. The share of tap-offs each day between 6pm and 6am rose from 21.1% to 26.1%.
Night-time people movement activity increased by 7.7%, from a nightly average of 5.13m to 5.53m. The proportion of an average day’s movement activity occurring at night rose from 27.8% to 33.9%.
Meanwhile, night-time in-person spending rose by 10.5%, from a nightly average of $39.8m to $44m, with the share of an average day’s spending between 6pm-6am rising from 16.8% to 20.5%.
A spokesperson for the 24-hour economy commissioner’s office said the uptick in night activity in the first week of daylight saving, particularly on Tuesday and Wednesday, was likely the result of people going out after work.
In the same period, Sunday recorded strong increases in Opal tap-offs and spending but only a modest rise in total people movement trips.
“This pattern suggests that a large proportion of the increased night-time visitation on Sunday was by public transport, indicating that many visitors are willing to take public transport in the evening while it remains light outside,” the spokesperson said.
While the NSW data was anonymised, studies have found darkness has a disproportionately negative effect on women’s mobility.
A 2023 Transport for New South Wales survey found 59% of female respondents felt unsafe walking after dark, compared with 31% of men. Poor lighting was identified as the most common reason.
The ability for daylight saving and an hour of extra sunlight each evening to influence consumer behaviour is well documented. A University of Queensland study from 2021 found the state’s lack of daylight saving costs its economy $4bn in lost productivity each year.
Similarly, a campaign in the 2010s for the UK to have two hours of daylight saving in summer and one during winter – effectively shifting its time zone forward an hour – predicted that in addition to boosting spending, 80,000 jobs would be created, boosting the economy by £2.5 to £3.5bn annually.
