Armadale couple Claire Walker and James Green, who travel by tram to St Kilda Road each weekday morning, like the idea of heading in the same direction. Photo: Penny Stephens

''GOING my way?'' It might sound like a cheesy pick-up line, but new research shows couples who commute to work in the same direction are happier than those who travel in opposite directions.

Two studies carried out in America and Hong Kong, to be published in an essay in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, found couples who travelled in the same direction reported greater marital satisfaction than those who didn't.

The Chinese researchers also found that even couples who left at different times or travelled on different trains, but were going the same way, were happier than those going different ways. They reached the conclusion by tracing the daily routes of hundreds of couples and recording their marital satisfaction via a questionnaire.

Armadale couple Claire Walker and James Green, who travel by tram to St Kilda Road each weekday morning, say they can vouch that couples who commute together are happy together. The couple work just a few kilometres apart.

''We usually catch the same tram in the mornings, which is really nice,'' says Claire, who works as an insurance underwriter on St Kilda Road. ''We don't often come home together because we finish at different times, but it does make public transport more tolerable when you've got your partner with you.''

While the researchers initially thought the reason for the closer relationships might be due to the fact that couples could meet up more regularly for lunch or an after-work drink, a third study ruled that out.

The laboratory study - which placed 80 students, unknown to each other, into random male-female pairings - found that couples who walked to an experimental task in the same direction were more attracted to each other than those who went in different directions.

The researchers therefore concluded that the increased partner satisfaction reported in all the studies was a result of the ''shared-direction effect.'' They argue that travelling in the same direction gives couples the sense that they share similar goals, which has been shown in previous studies to positively impact on relationship satisfaction.

''I think that makes a lot of sense,'' says Claire. ''There's something nice about knowing that James and I are heading in the same direction, so to speak, and also that he's never too far away.''

''It's a nice convenience,'' agrees James, a sales manager who works on nearby Kings Way. ''It also means we get to spend a bit more time together, which is awesome.''