3. Cars and bicycles available to households(Tables 1 and 2; Charts A and B)
3.1 The interviewer asks the Highest Income Householder (or his/her spouse/partner) about any cars normally available for private use by members of the household. Table 1 shows the results. The first row of the table gives the figures for Scotland as a whole. In the two-year period 2003/2004, 34% of households said that they did not have a car available for private use, 44% had one car, 19% had two cars, and 3% had three or more cars. About two-thirds (66%) of households had one or more cars, and around 23% had two or more cars. The number in italics at the right-hand end of the first row show that these results were produced from the answers given by 30,822 householders.
3.2 The next six rows show how the position varied between "urban" and "rural" areas, using the six-way classification that was developed for the analysis of the SHS results. 83% of households in rural areas had one or more cars available for private use compared with 57% of households in large urban areas. Households in rural areas were the most likely to have two or more cars: 39% of those in "accessible" rural areas did so (33% had two cars, and 6% had three or more), as did 34% of those in "remote" rural areas (28% had two cars, and 6% had three or more). Only 16% of households in large urban areas had two or more cars.
3.3 The remaining rows of the table provide figures for each local authority area. Chart A illustrates how car availability varies between Council areas. The percentage of households having two or more cars was highest for Aberdeenshire, East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire (all about 36-37%) and lowest for Dundee and Glasgow (both 10-11%).
3.4 Overall, 34% of households did not have a car in 2003/2004. The percentage without a car was highest in large urban areas (43%), and lowest in rural areas (17%). Glasgow (55%), Dundee (49%) and Inverclyde (43%) had the highest percentages without a car; Aberdeenshire (16%) had the lowest percentage without a car, followed by East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Highland and Moray (all 19-21%).
3.5 The interviewer asks whether the household has any bicycles which can be used by adults. Table 1 shows that, in 2003/2004, 34% of households had one or more bicycles. This percentage varied with the type of area, from 26% for households in large urban areas to 48% for those in rural areas. The lowest percentages were found in Glasgow (19%) and Dundee and Inverclyde (both 21-22%); Moray (56%), Highland (54%) and Aberdeenshire (52%) had the highest percentages.
3.6 Table 2 compares the figures for the two-year period 2003/2004 with the figures for the two previous two-year periods (1999/2000, the first two years of the survey, and 2001/2002). The table shows the figures for Scotland as a whole, for each category of the urban/rural classification, and for each Regional Transport Partnership ( RTP) area. One should remember that, when there are many sample estimates, a few apparently "statistically significant" changes may arise purely by chance, due to sampling variability (see paragraph 10.8). The main change over the three two-year periods is the increase in the percentage of households with two or more cars, which latterly seems to be more rapid in "rural" areas than in "urban" ones, and a less marked rise in the percentage with one or more cars. There are occasionally slightly "odd" results - for example, the percentage of households in Shetland without a car appears to have risen slightly (from 24% to 25%), but this may well reflect sampling variability ( e.g. purely by chance, the 2003/2004 sample produced too high a value) rather than a genuine increase in the percentage of households in Shetland without a car.