SCHOOLCHILDREN and university students aren't the only ones to suffer from the back to school blues.

During the summer months it's easy to forget how bad rush-hour traffic can be but the beginning of the academic year also marks the start of bigger traffic jams and longer commuting times. On some routes, motorists and bus users look forward to setting out from home up to half an hour earlier in the mornings and getting home a half-hour later in the evening.

But that extra hour doesn't have to be written off as lost time. If used wisely it can help to lighten the workload at the office.

Mobile working is increasingly becoming a viable option as the cost of mobile email devices and palm PCs falls and the technology improves.

Yet Ireland is somewhat behind the curve in taking advantage of such advances. A survey of 300 employees and over 200 employers conducted by Amarach Consulting last year found that four in ten companies already had a number of workers using various types of mobile devices, ranging from laptops to Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) to access email, send and receive documents and conduct various other tasks while out of the office. Among the benefits of having "mobile workers" listed by those businesses were that it allowed their employees to be more flexible, to work from home on occasion and to spend less time in traffic.

Such companies are in the minority, however. A further 10% of those companies surveyed said they were actively thinking about a mobile strategy for their employees but half of those questioned "remain to be convinced about mobile working", according to the survey.

Paddy Collins, head of solutions and partnering at Vodafone Ireland, is one of the people charged with turning the sceptics around. He said there are a range of products available that can make life easier for the commuting worker.

Choosing the right option depends on what tasks you are most likely to have to accomplish on the move.

"Probably the thing most people are interested in getting is access to their email, " he said. The easiest, and most cost effective way, to get email on the move is to sign up to one of the mobile network's business email services. Vodafone and O2 both offer services that allow you to connect to the office email using a standard phone handset for a subscription fee starting at around 12 a month.

The obvious drawback is that the ability to reply to messages using a normal phone keypad is very limited. If brevity is not your strong point and you require a full keyboard on which to compose your thoughts and formulate detailed messages on the move, a more specialised handset is required.

The most popular on the market is the famed Blackberry. The compact handsets are small enough to qualify as "pocket-sized" but with a big enough screen that you won't be squinting to read mail and the added bonus of a full Qwerty keyboard. The latest version, the Blackberry 8707 (at a retail price of 299) is a 3G handset, meaning it will connect to Vodafone's highspeed data network where available and can be used to send and receive large documents and surf the internet.

Other options on the market include smartphones such as the Palm Treo . . . which has been chipping away at Blackberry's dominance in the US market . . . which offer much the same functionality. Nokia has also been to the fore in the mobile email market. Its new E61 handset, at 199, is cheaper than many of the competing products on the market.

Both the E61 and the Blackberry can also be plugged into a laptop to provide internet access on the move. Vodafone's Chris Burton said many of the operator's corporate clients favour hand-held devices over laptops for their employees, however, especially for those workers who will be using buses and trains.

"Particularly on public transport, hand-held use would be a lot higher than laptop use. You don't always have the luxury of having a seat. There is also the discretion factor. Using laptops in public places is often against company policy, " he said.

One drawback to such devices is that, while they may help protect the company's privacy, some users see them as an intrusion into their own.

The Amarach survey offered contrasting views from those who regularly use mobile devices such as Blackberrys and PDAs.

While one "mworker" claimed that simply having remote access to their email meant they could leave the office an hour earlier, another said "being contactable 24/7 leaves me open to my own life being intruded on".

Clearly it is important to bear in mind that being connected with the office also means that the office is connected with you.