[tharmas]

That is so sad. Here in North America (with the odd exception) we don't even have a choice. Its the car only. The only good thing about a car is autonomy: you leave when you want to leave, and you have control of the environment => no noisy cell phone chats and you can choose whatever music you want to listen to or not.

[Symbiote]

Many commuters in London also leave when they want to leave, or close to it. Metro trains run every 2-10 minutes on most of the network (I'm including the ends of the lines there), urban/suburban/regional trains around every 10-20 minutes.

Personally, if the service is at least every 10 minutes I won't check the time when I leave. If it's 20 or more I will, and in-between probably depends on the weather and if the station is indoors or not.