Travel by Scottish residents: some National Travel Survey results for 1998/2000 and earlier years
1 Introduction
1.1 This bulletin provides information from the National Travel Survey (NTS) about travel within Great Britain (GB) by Scottish residents. The NTS covers a sample of households across GB, and is conducted on behalf of the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions (DTLR). The results of the NTS for GB as a whole appear each year in DTLR publications, which include some figures for Scotland alongside statistics for other parts of GB. This bulletin concentrates upon the NTS statistics of travel by Scottish residents. We acknowledge gratefully the help of DTLR Transport Statistics staff, who provided the statistics for this bulletin.
1.2 The NTS collects information about all kinds of personal travel for which the main reason for the trip is for the traveller to reach the destination. The survey therefore covers travel for private purposes, for work, and for education. Commuting is included. Trips in the course of work are also included if they fulfil the requirement that the main reason for the trip is for the traveller to reach the destination. However, travel in the course of work to convey passengers or to deliver goods is excluded (eg travel at work by bus drivers, lorry drivers and postmen). Notes on the NTS's coverage and definitions appear in Section 4.3.
1.3 The NTS is not designed to produce annual figures for Scotland: up to the end of 2001, each year's sample included only 300 or so Scottish households, so the samples for a number of years must be combined in order to produce Scottish results, and even they will be subject to sampling variability. This may lead to the NTS producing unreliable results for some relatively infrequent types of travel, because they are based upon a small number of trips in the sample, and so may be subject to large percentage sampling errors. For this reason, some tables show the numbers of people in the sample, and italics identify figures which are based upon fewer than 300 trips in the sample (and so could be affected by particularly high percentage sampling errors). DTLR tripled the NTS's sample size with effect from the start of 2002, so sampling errors for subsequent years' results will be smaller.
2. Main Points
2.1 The National Travel Survey results for 1998/2000 suggest that an average Scottish resident travelled around 7,200 miles per year (or about 20 miles per day) within Great Britain. This is much more than ten or twenty years earlier: since 1985/86, this average has risen by almost 2,600 miles (55%); and there has been an increase of over 3,000 miles (72%) since 1975/76. The cause is not so much people travelling more often (the average number of trips per person per year has risen by only 20% since 1975/76) as people going further when they do travel (the average length of a trip was 45% higher in 1998/2000 than in 1975/76).
2.2 The average time spent travelling per person increased by 24% from 289 hours per year (or 48 minutes per day) in 1975/76 to 359 hours per year (59 minutes per day) in 1998/2000.
2.3 Cars alone accounted for 85% of the increase since 1975/76 in the average distance travelled per person per year.
2.4 In 1998/2000, cars alone accounted for about three quarters (74%: over 5,300 miles) of the total distance travelled per person. No other mode of travel accounted for more than 10%: "surface rail" had the next highest share (6%: 450 miles), followed by "local bus" (6%: 430 miles).
2.5 Between 1985/86 and 1998/2000, there were large increases in the average numbers of trips per person made as a car driver (up 79%) or as a car passenger (up 35%), and large falls for walking (down 28%) and local bus (down 30%).
2.6 Shopping was the most frequent purpose of travel in 1998/2000, accounting for 22% of the average of over 1,050 trips per person per year. Commuting or business purposes accounted for 19% of trips.
2.7 Between 1985/86 and 1998/2000, the average distance travelled per person rose by 94% for shopping trips, by 92% for other personal business (e.g. visits to a doctor, library or church), by 42% for commuting and by 58% for holidays and day trips.
2.8 Men made 1% more trips each, on average, than women. "Car driver" was the main mode of travel for men, accounting for 69% of the distance they covered in 1998/2000, whereas only 38% of the distance travelled by women was as a car driver.
2.9 In 1998/2000, people in the highest quintile income group averaged 15% more than the overall average number of trips per person per year; people in the lowest quintile income group averaged 23% fewer trips than the overall average.
2.10 People in households with access to cars averaged 8% more than the overall average number of trips per person per year; people in households without a car averaged 24% fewer trips than the overall average.
3. Commentary
3.1 Basic travel statistics(Table A; Charts 1,2)
3.1.1 The National Travel Survey results for 1998/2000 suggest that an average Scottish resident travelled around 7,200 miles per year (or about 20 miles per day) within Great Britain. Table A shows that this is much more than ten or twenty years earlier: since 1975/76, this average has risen by over 3,000 miles (72%), with an increase of almost 2,600 miles (55%) since 1985/86. Chart 1 illustrates this, and shows that cars alone account for most of the distance travelled (in 1998/2000, over 5,300 miles: 74% of the total), and for most of the increase in the distance travelled (with a rise of over 2,500 miles: 85% of the overall increase since 1975/76).
3.1.2 There was less rapid growth in the number of trips made per person, which rose by 16% from an average of just under 900 per year (or 2.4 per day) in 1975/76 to over 1,050 per year (2.9 per day) in 1998/2000. The principal cause of the increase in the average distance travelled was a rise of 45% in the average length of a trip, from 4.7 miles in 1975/76 to 6.8 miles in 1998/2000. Over the same period, the per capita average time spent travelling increased by 24% from 289 hours per year (or 48 minutes per day) to 359 hours per year (59 minutes per day). In consequence, throughout the period, the average duration of a trip did not change much, remaining around 20 minutes, while the average speed increased from under 15 miles per hour to just over 20 miles per hour.
3.1.3 The main reasons for the increase in travel are that there are more cars, and more people able to drive them. Since 1975/76 the number of cars and other vehicles available (per 100 Scottish households) has risen by 85%, from 52 to 96 vehicles per 100 households (at a time of falling household sizes). At the same time, the percentage of the adult population qualified to drive them has increased: in 1998/2000, about 78% of men and 58% of women held a full car driving licence - considerably more than the 66% of men and 24% of women in 1975/76. Chart 2 illustrates how the rate of growth was much higher for women than for men, and the potential for further increases is much greater for women than for men. It should also be noted that the percentages of the adult population who were qualified to drive in 1998/2000 were a little lower in Scotland (78% of men and 58% of women) than in Great Britain as a whole (82% of men and 60% of women).
3.1.4 Finally, it would appear that the average annual mileage per car has not changed much, remaining at around 10,000 miles per year since 1985/86 (no corresponding figure is available for 1975/76).
3.2 Average distance travelled per person per year by mode of travel(Table B)
3.2.1 When the 1998/2000 average of over 7,200 miles travelled per person per year is broken down between the different modes of travel in Table B, it is seen that almost half the total distance (49%: over 3,500 miles) was travelled as the driver of a car or a van or a lorry. (The base for all the "per person" averages is the whole population, including non-drivers: the average distance travelled as a driver would be much higher for those who can drive.) The NTS's normal convention is to include vans and lorries with cars when reporting the results. Table B shows that only a small percentage of personal travel is by van or lorry. Henceforth, all references to "car" should be taken as also including vans and lorries. A further 27% (almost 2,000 miles) was travelled as a passenger in a car. So, cars accounted for about three quarters of the total distance travelled per person. No other mode of travel accounted for more than 10%: "surface rail" had the next highest share with 6% (450 miles). "Local bus" accounted for 6% (430 miles) and "other public transport" (which includes air) for 3% (about 220 miles). Walking accounted for only 3% (200 miles), and cycling for only 0.4% (31 miles per person per year).
3.2.2 Cars accounted for 88% of the increase of almost 2,600 miles since 1985/86 in the average distance travelled per person per year. The average distance travelled per person as a driver rose by over 1,600 miles, and that as a passenger by approaching 650 miles. As a result, the car's share of the total distance travelled rose from 70% to 76%. Over the same period, there were falls in the average distances walked (from almost 290 miles to under 210 miles) and travelled in non-local buses (from about 170 miles to around 120 miles). At the same time there was rapid growth in "other public transport", which includes air, which rose from about 50 miles to a few hundred miles - the figure varies somewhat between the periods, presumably due to sampling variability (the inclusion, by chance, of more users of modes such as air - or of people who make greater use of those modes - in the sample in some years than in other years). There was little overall change for the other modes of travel: some of the apparent changes, such as the fluctuations in the figures for rail, could be due to sampling variability rather than any real change in travel patterns (over the same period, total Scottish rail passenger numbers have been much more stable than the NTS estimates).
3.3 Trips per person per year, Average distance travelled per person per year, and Average length of trip - all by main mode of travel(Tables C, D, E; Charts 3,4)
3.3.1 In the case of a trip with more than one stage (eg by bus to a railway station, then by train to - say - Manchester), Table B's figures are based upon counting separately the distance for each mode of travel used for each stage of the trip. However, the other analyses of "mode" in this bulletin use the main mode of travel for the trip as a whole (in the example given, this would be 'rail'). Hence, the distances shown for each mode of travel in Table B may differ slightly from those shown for each main mode of travel in Table D and some other tables. In addition, it should be noted that (for reasons given in paragraph 4.2.5) the modes that are shown may differ between tables: for example, "private hire bus" and "non-local bus" appear as separate modes of travel in Table B but are included in the "other..." categories in other tables.
3.3.2 In 1998/2000, on average, over 1,050 trips were made per person per year (Table C). Cars were the main mode of travel for over half of them (58%), with 38% (407) made as a driver and 20% (210) made as a passenger. The car's 58% share of the number of trips is less than its 76% share of the distance travelled (Table D) because many short trips are made by foot: the average of 302 walking trips per person per year represents 29% of all trips (Table C), but walking only accounts for 2% of the distance travelled (Table D) - a difference that can be seen clearly when Chart 3 and Chart 4 are compared.
3.3.3 Table C shows that the overall average number of trips made per person per year did not change greatly between 1985/86 and 1998/2000, rising only by 9%. However, there were large increases in the average numbers of trips per person made mainly by car, with 'driver' trips rising by 79% and 'passenger' trips up by 35%. At the same time, the average numbers of trips per person made mainly by foot or by local bus fell, by 28% and 30% respectively.
3.3.4 The average distances travelled per person per year by main mode of travel are shown in Table D. The main trends are very similar to those shown in Table B and described in section 3.2: there are large rises for 'car driver' and 'car passenger', and a large fall for 'walk'. The very slight rise for 'local bus' (under 1%) contrasts with the 30% drop in trips shown in Table C: it seems that the average length of local bus trips has increased ( see Table E) from under 4 miles in 1985/86 to 5.5 miles in 1998/2000. Over the same period, there has been little change in the average lengths of car trips (around 8.5 miles) and of walking trips (about 0.5 mile). Rail trips tend to average around 30 miles.