Why don't we all follow the same time zone?

Travelers often struggle with the inconvenience of resetting their watches or adjusting laptop clocks to match the local time. Have you ever missed a meeting because you forgot the time difference between Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City? Time zones are designed to align our clocks with the sun's position, but they can create confusion when crossing borders or coordinating with distant contacts.

It's interesting to think that time zones were created to reduce confusion, not add to it. Since solar time shifts with even a small change in location, for most of history, time of day was never the same from one place to another.

"Time was once only gauged by the position of the sun, so the sundial determined the hour," shares Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. For instance, noon in London occurred 10 minutes earlier than noon in Bristol, which lies 120 miles (193 kilometers) to the west. Even after mechanical clocks became common in Europe in the 1300s, such time discrepancies continued.

How Railways Standardized Time Zones

It wasn't until the 1800s, with the rise of railroad travel, that confusion over time became a significant issue. "People were missing trains, and near-misses and collisions became more frequent," says Hanke. The ability to travel swiftly between cities highlighted the need for standardized timekeeping.

The issue of differing time systems wasn't limited to Europe. "In the U.S., each city adhered to its own time standard," Hanke remarks. "There were 300 local time zones in the U.S., but eventually, the railroads streamlined them down to just 100."

In 1876, a missed train due to a timetable error led Scottish-born engineer Sir Sandford Fleming to rethink global timekeeping. Fleming proposed dividing the world into 24 time zones, each spanning approximately 15 degrees of longitude.

Instead of relying on local solar days, his system was based on the Royal Greenwich Observatory in the U.K., where Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was determined by the sun's position over the prime meridian. Since most maritime charts already marked Greenwich as the prime meridian (longitude 0 degrees), it naturally became the dividing line between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.

On November 18, 1883 — now referred to as "the day of two noons" — railroads in North America adopted a new system of four time zones: Eastern Time, Central Time, Mountain Time, and Pacific Time.

Numerous cities passed local laws to adopt the new time system, and eventually, it became the standard across the U.S. By using GMT as the reference point, it avoided any competition among U.S. cities vying to become the prime meridian.

Can We Condense All These Zones?

Despite having fewer time variations, confusion over time resurfaced in the 20th century. The rise of air travel further compressed distances, while the growth of the internet and mobile technology enabled instant communication worldwide, creating a 24-7 culture in which we are tightly linked to events across the globe.

A few years ago, Hanke and his colleague, Professor Richard Conn Henry from Johns Hopkins University, proposed a more straightforward solution. They suggested eliminating time zones entirely and instead using universal time (UTC) globally. Under this system, when it's 9:00 AM in one location, it would be the same 9:00 AM everywhere, no matter if it’s morning in one place and evening in another.

Not only would this make adapting to travel easier, but it would also simplify organizing events, like conference calls, with people spread out from Montana to Germany. Hanke, who serves as the supervisory board chairman for a Dutch company, often faces this challenge.

"The endless confusion would be gone forever," Henry agrees via email. "Life would be much simpler!"

Since Hanke and Henry introduced the idea of abolishing time zones in 2012, others, including bestselling author and New York Times essayist James Gleick, have voiced their support. In fact, a shift towards universal time has already begun in certain ways.

UTC In Practice

In the U.S., pilots and air traffic controllers depend on universal time for their operations. Likewise, financial traders who conduct cross-border transactions across different time zones also use universal time stamps to ensure accurate pricing. In fact, the internet itself operates on universal time.

Some may question whether adopting universal time would change people's daily routines, but Hanke doesn’t believe it would have that impact.

"Some people say, 'If we switched to universal time, businesses would have to open in the dark!' But that's not true. Your business would still run by the sun's schedule. For instance, if you open at 9 a.m. in New York or Baltimore, that would correspond to 14:00 [2 p.m.] on your clock," Hanke explains (assuming GMT is 9 a.m.).

It might take a bit of adjustment, but Hanke believes that in a generation, children raised with UTC wouldn't link 7 a.m. to breakfast or 9 a.m. to the start of the workday. The switch isn’t as unfamiliar as it sounds.

"China faces this 'issue' of having one time zone across a vast East-West expanse," Henry points out. "However, the issue is resolved by allowing local decisions on opening and closing times for businesses. This approach would certainly be crucial for a global system like UTC."