High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Friday, September 23, 2011
Household Car Availability
In 2010, 30 per cent of households did not have a car normally available for private use according to the Scottish Household Survey (SHS). Of the 70 per cent of households with at least one car available for private use, 44 per cent had one, 22 per cent had two and 4 per cent had three or more.
The chart shows how the availability of a car increased with the income of the household, from 41 per cent for low-income households (annual net household income of up to £10,000), to 98 per cent for those in high-income households (annual net household income over £40,000). It also shows how the percentages with two or more cars, and with three or more cars, rose with income.
Around 85-86 per cent of households in rural areas had at least one car, compared with only 60 per cent of those in large urban areas.
The SHS shows that, since 1999, the percentage of households with one or more cars has risen from 63 per cent to 70 per cent, and that 2+ car households have increased from 18 per cent to 26 per cent (in both cases, with some apparent year-to-year fluctuations that are likely to be due to sampling variability).
The Department for Transport has combined the small Scottish samples of some GB surveys (like the National Travel Survey) to show the longer-term growth in the percentages of households with a car (from 51 per cent in 1987 to 71 per cent in 2007) and with 2+ cars (from 11 per cent to 26 per cent). It should be noted that the results of the SHS and the Scottish samples of GB surveys may differ slightly (e.g.) due to sampling variability.
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Source: Scottish Transport Statistics
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