According to recent research, by the time I retire (which going on the estimates of my financial adviser will be some time around the age of 87), I will have wasted well over a year and a half of my life commuting through London. In doing so, I will have spent in excess of £66,000 on experiencing close and personal time with people I neither know or want to be intimate with. I am a Londoner born and bred, and as such I have tried commuting in all its forms (well, not strictly all as I maintain the city is simply too big to be expected to walk to work) and, according to another study, suffered worse stress levels than riot police and fighter pilots while travelling in rush hour.

Commuters in major cities across the world (possibly with the exception of Copenhagen and Bogotá, which both seem to get it right) will doubtless empathise with the London transport system’s many tribes. From harassed, world-weary looking people trying to maintain some semblance of personal space and dignity while wearing a stranger’s armpit as a face mask, to those trying to stop the pulsing veins in their forehead from spelling out “Rage” as another full bus splashes rain water on their suit trousers, ours is a multifaceted world of joy.

He thought that selling his town house and moving to the country would give him space to breathe and freedom to move, and deluded himself that waking up some 60 miles away from his place of work would simultaneously alleviate the stresses and angst of city life. Having tried and failed to adapt to commuting by rail (it was the other passengers he objected to), he decided he wanted more “me time” on the journey in. As a result, he now spends four hours alone each day, broiling with rage in a fridge-like family estate with an interior that’s equal parts regurgitated Cheerios and coagulated baby milk. If the crumb-lined twin baby seats and sun screens in the shape of a cat’s face on both rear windows are not enough to exhaust his already diminished fund of self-esteem, the regularity with which said car overheats in slow-moving traffic certainly is. Currently considering putting country retreat on the market and moving back to the city, having been diagnosed with high blood pressure.

His colleagues know he rides a bike into work each day — they have been bored rigid by his talk of chain sets and how invigorated he feels each morning (even if he lives only a mile or two away). What they really don’t want, though, is to be confronted with the reality of what he looks like in Lycra. Sadly, this is a man who thinks nothing of going back into the office after changing for his commute home and bending over to turn off his computer wearing suspender shorts so tight they indicate his religious orientation. And then, once he leaves for the day, he is transformed, becoming a pedalling despot who freewheels blithely through stop lights, unleashing volleys of abuse at anyone with the temerity to step onto a pedestrian crossing. His work suit will be cheap and kept in a cupboard at the office because, to him, a suit is aerodynamically flawed — he likes his clothes to feel like skin.

Seasoned travellers on any major city’s underground system will recognise this tribe, for it is made up of those who believe it their moral duty to educate and inform other commuters in the intricacies of travel etiquette. From how many people it’s possible to fit into that minuscule space between the glass partition and the door, to loudly berating confused-looking tourists for standing on the left on escalators or congregating in front of maps at the entrances to platforms, they are the fast-moving moral guardians of the subterranean commute. Favourite phrases include “Move down” (issued directly into the cochlea) and, if really angry, hissed complaints about “having more personal space in a veal crate”. By the time it comes for them to get off, their general outrage at the idiocy of their fellow commuters will result in a sweat-etched map of the relevant rail network on the back of their shirts.

He travels by bus and has perfected the art of sitting on the outside of a double seat on the top deck, leaving the window seat occupied either by his bag or his seething antipathy towards the rest of the human race. Wearing headphones that lisp with whatever awful music he is listening to at brain-shattering volume, and effecting a death stare that could melt reinforced steel at a distance of 20 paces, he considers it an affront on a par with one urinating in his baby’s cot to be asked to shuffle along or move aside so that the empty seat can be used for what it was actually designed for. The Misanthrope’s key skills include high-volume tutting.

Almost as bad as The Misanthrope, talkers are a tribe that most commuters are at pains to avoid. The first golden rule of commuting is that conversation is banned between the hours of 7.00am and 9.30am, for this is a period in which thoughts are privately focused on mass murder rather than banal discourse, especially with complete strangers. Talkers tend to be one of three types: tourists who are clearly over-excited about being in London and travelling on one of the city’s “iconic” red buses or “world famous” tube trains; old-age pensioners who still retain an outdated belief in the spirit of community; and finally, the downright deranged. The latter are particularly dangerous, as given any or no opportunity they will embark on a rambling life story that will inevitably include details on how they were evicted from their homes and came to be asking you for cash.

There are many different types of commuting snoozer, from the window-kissing bus passenger destined to stir only once the engine has been turned off and the bus is safely parked in the garage at the end of the route, to the head wobbling train traveller who wakes up every five minutes to apologise for nuzzling your neck and dribbling down the lapels of your jacket. Among the most popular are those with no means of lateral support. Usually in varying states of intoxication, these rare cases can enliven otherwise dull journeys by nodding off and then gradually toppling forwards until they either head butt their knees or collapse into an embarrassed heap in the aisle, sustaining minor injuries in the process. To be avoided at all costs, particularly on long commutes, are the snorers and those with involuntary limb spasms.

There can be no excuse for pairing a work suit with a pair of nondescript trainers, especially those that resemble roll-on, roll-off ferries. Invariably accessorised with an ugly nylon rucksack and the sort of sunglasses used for specialist alpine sports or spot-welding, this look is championed by those who choose to walk to work — or who would like their fellow commuters to think they do. Studies have shown that those who walk are the happiest commuters, but no experts have yet found an explanation for why so many of these suit and trainer types end up on public transport. And when they do, all that their look suggests is a chronic foot condition (Gout? Corns? Industrial-level athlete’s foot?) is responsible for this most awful fashion faux pas.