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Household Transport in 2008
09/11/2009
Scotland's Chief Statistician today published Household Transport in 2008.
This bulletin presents further analyses of transport-related information collected by the Scottish Household Survey. Headline results were published earlier in the year.
Main Findings
Sixty-six per cent of respondents used the car to travel to work (stable since 1999), of which only 6 per cent travelled as a passenger (down from 12 per cent in 1999)
- Walking and cycling accounted for 15 per cent and public transport 16 per cent of all journeys to work in 2008.
Twenty-six per cent of households had access to two or more cars in 2008 (up from 18 per cent in 1999), whilst 30 per cent had no access to a car (down from 37 per cent in 1999)
- 76 per cent of males and 60 per cent of females possessed a full driving licence in 2008.
- 80 per cent of those living in accessible rural areas drove at least once a week in 2008.
A quarter of respondents had a regular bus service (at least five buses an hour) in 2008.
- 46 per cent had used their local bus service in the last month (up from 41 per cent in 2002), with 24 per cent using their local train (up from 15 per cent in 2002)
- 21 per cent had made a part driving/parking journey in the last month, where they chose to drive only part of the journey.
- 78 per cent of respondents never used the bus in the evening and 78 per cent never used the train in the evening.
- 56 per cent of those aged 60 and over used a concessionary pass at least once a month (52 per cent in previous years) with 28 per cent having a pass but not using it.
Eighty-one per cent of respondents felt that public transport was very or fairly convenient to access in 2008.
- 9 per cent of respondents with a limiting illness or disability had difficulty with at least one type of travel activity (walking/car/bus/train/taxi).
Half of all journeys to school were made by walking or cycling in 2008 (down from 55 per cent in 1999).
- Children in primary school were more likely to walk (55 per cent) or be driven (30 per cent) to school than children in secondary school (42 per cent and 16 per cent respectively).
Thirty-seven per cent of households had access to at least one bicycle in 2008 (up from 32 per cent in 1999).
- 45 per cent of respondents had walked for pleasure in past seven days and 5 per cent had cycled.
The SHS started in February 1999 and involves interviews with about 15,500 households across Scotland each year. While the aim is to obtain a representative cross section, like any survey the results may vary from year-to-year depending upon the composition of the sample. Some topics have been included in the SHS since it started; others were added more recently.
Household Transport provides further analyses of SHS Transport results. Headline figures were published in August in Main Transport Trends.
Scottish Household Survey data published today uses an improved weighting methodology which has incured small revisions to the time series without changing the overall trend.