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Statistical Bulletin Trn/2005/2
Scottish Household Survey Travel Diary results for
2003
Introduction
4.1.1 In cases where the randomly-chosen
adult says that he or she made any journeys or trips out of
the house on the previous day, the interviewer asks for
details of each journey. When a journey consists of a
number of stages (e.g. the person went by bus to a station,
and then caught a train to, say, Manchester), the
interviewer records details of each stage. The interviewer
says that there is
no need to mention any stages (or journeys) which
were less than a quarter of a mile, or less than five
minutes on foot, such as a short walk to a bus stop.
4.1.2 The information recorded about each journey
includes
For journeys made by car, the
interviewer also asks:
- the number of occupants of the car;
- whether the journey was delayed by traffic
congestion, and if so, for how long;
- whether the driver paid for parking at the end of
the journey, and if so, how much was paid, and for how
long was the vehicle parked.
For journeys made by bus or rail, the
interviewer asks:
- whether the journey was delayed, and if so, for how
long, and what the cause of the delay was.
4.1.3 In cases where a journey consists
of a number of stages, the interviewer asks for information
about the mode of transport, and about the start and end
places and times of each of the stages (apart from any
stages of less than a quarter of a mile or less than five
minutes on foot). In such cases, the
main mode of transport for the journey is defined,
as in the GB National Travel Survey, as the mode of
transport which was used for the longest (in distance)
stage of the journey -
see
paragraph A3.5.
4.2
Day of week of travel
4.2.1
Table 2 shows the percentages of adults' journeys for
Scotland for 2003 which were reported for each day of the
week of travel,
after the reweighting process (
see
section A4.2) has spread the number of
interviews evenly over the days of the week.
Table 2 illustrates that there is not much variation by day
of week except that there are slightly fewer journeys on
Sundays (12% of all journeys) compared with each of the
other days of the week (13-16%). Similarly there seems to
be little or no variation in day of travel with sex and
age-group.
4.2.2 There is more variation with day
of week for the main mode of travel. Only 6% of bus
journeys and 8% of rail journeys are on a Sunday,
reflecting the reduced services then, although the rail
figures may not be precise, being based on a small sample
of journeys. 25% of taxi/minicab journeys were made on
Saturdays. The percentages for bicycle are based on a total
of only slightly over 200 bicycle journeys, so they may be
unreliable.
4.2.3 The day of week of travel
also varies with the purpose of the journey, with
proportionally more shopping journeys on a Saturday (21% of
all shopping journeys compared with 12-16% on each of the
other days). There are higher percentages of journeys with
the purpose of "visiting friends and relatives" at the
weekends: 17% on Saturdays and 21% on Sundays compared with
11-15% on each of the other days of the week. Also, a much
higher percentage of eating and drinking journeys are made
on Saturdays (30%) than on any other day of the week. There
was not much variation in the day of week of travel with
the current situation of the interviewee.
4.2.4 There were apparent differences in
the day of the week of travel with the type of area of
residence. For example, apparently only 4% of journeys made
by residents of "remote" small towns were made on a
Saturday, and only 7% of journeys made by those living in
"remote" rural areas were made on a Sunday. These figures
should be interpreted with caution, bearing in mind that
interviewers' preferences in some "remote" areas may mean
that the actual numbers of interviews conducted on certain
days of the week are very small and the reweighting process
may not have fully compensated for this. The reweighting
process produces an even spread of interviews over the days
of the week for Scotland as a whole, but
not for different types of areas.
4.2.5 Little change in the distribution
of journeys by day of travel was shown between the five
years.
4.3.
Main mode of transport4.3.1
Table 3 analyses the main mode of travel for the journeys
that were recorded. In 2003, the main mode of travel for
54% of journeys was as a driver of a car or van, 16% of
journeys were as a passenger in a car or van, 16% were made
on foot, 10% were bus journeys, 2% were taxi/minicab
journeys and 1% were made by rail. The main mode of travel
differed between the sexes: 63% of journeys by men were as
a driver of a car or van compared with 46% of journeys by
women, and 22% of journeys by women were as a passenger in
a car or van in contrast to 9% of journeys by men. There
were slight differences between the sexes for journeys by
bus (11% of journeys by women compared with 8% of journeys
by men).
4.3.2 There were also big
differences between age-groups in the mode of travel used.
27% of journeys for people aged 16-19 were on foot, as were
22% of journeys for those aged 20-29, and 19-20% of
journeys for those aged 70+. This compares with 11-14% for
the 30-59 age-groups. The main mode of travel was as a
driver of a car or van for 16% of journeys by adults in the
16-19 age-group and 22% of journeys by people aged 80+,
compared with 59-66% of journeys by adults in the 30-59
age-groups. Bus was the main mode of travel for 6-7% of
journeys by those aged 30-59 in contrast to 21% of journeys
by those aged 16-19 and 19-20% by those aged 70 and over.
Rail was the main mode of transport for 3% of journeys by
those aged 16-29 compared with 1% or less of journeys by
those aged 40 and above.
4.3.3 The main mode of travel
varied with the purpose of the journey
(Chart B). 60% of commuting journeys were as a
driver of a car or van, as were 69% of escort journeys and
77% of business journeys, compared with only 30% of
journeys by people going out to eat or drink and 34% of
journeys to or from education. Only 4% of business journeys
were on foot and 5% were by bus. There were higher
percentages of journeys by foot and by bus when the journey
purpose was education (29% and 15% respectively). 11% of
journeys for the purpose of eating and drinking were by
taxi or minicab compared with 4% or less for the other
journey purposes. There was also some variation with the
employment status of the adult. The main mode of travel was
as a driver of a car or van for 79% of journeys by the
self-employed and 65% of journeys by people in full-time
employment compared with 26% of journeys made by adults in
higher/further education. 35% of journeys by the unemployed
were by foot in contrast to only 7% of journeys by the
self-employed and 10% of journeys by those in full-time
employment. For 21% of journeys by those in further or
higher education, the main mode of transport used was bus
compared with 7% of journeys by those in full-time or
part-time employment and only 1% of journeys by those in
self-employment. 6% of journeys by those who were
permanently sick or disabled were made by taxi or minicab,
compared to 1-2% for the other groups.
4.3.4 The main mode of travel
also varied markedly with socio-economic classification and
with income. For example, the percentages of journeys which
were made by foot were 18-19% for those in routine or
semi-routine occupations, compared with 8-12% for other
types of occupation. Also, the percentage of journeys which
were made as the driver of a car or van rose from 33% for
those in households with an annual net income of up to
10,000 p.a. to 71% for adults in the "over 40,000"
household income band.
4.3.5 There were also
differences between the type of area in which the
respondent lived. 24% of journeys made by residents of the
most deprived 20% of areas of Scotland were on foot,
compared to 11-13% in the least deprived 60% of areas; 33%
were as the driver of a car, compared to 59-62%; 20% were
by bus, compared to 5-7%; and 3% were by taxi or minicab,
compared to 1%. 43% of journeys by adults who live in large
urban areas were made as a driver of a car or van whereas
in rural areas 70-73% of journeys were made as a driver of
a car or van.
4.3.6 39% of journeys made by
adults in a household with no cars available were made on
foot and 32% by bus, compared to 14% on foot and 6% by bus
when one car was available, and 6% on foot and 3% by bus
when more than one car was available. 72% of journeys made
by adults with a full driving licence were made as the
driver of a car.
4.3.7 The bottom part of
Table 3 shows that the proportion of reported journeys made
as the driver of a car has increased slightly each year,
from 49.9% in 1999 to 53.9% in 2003. The proportion of
journeys made on foot has decreased from 19.5% in 1999 to
15.6% in 2003.
4.3.8
Table 4 compares the figures for 2003 with those for
1999-2002. The table shows the figures for Scotland as a
whole, each category of the urban/rural classification and
the "larger" local authority areas individually. Other
local authority areas are grouped together, because the SHS
does not have a large sample in most council areas, so
their figures may be subject to quite large sampling
errors. The figures do
not suggest great changes over the five years,
either overall, or in any of the types of area across
Scotland, apart from those already mentioned. The largest
changes were in the Lothians (East Lothian, Midlothian and
West Lothian, taken together), with increases in the
percentage of journeys made by car, and falls in the
percentage of journeys made on foot.
4.4
Purpose of reported journeys4.4.1
Table 5 details the purpose of journeys (
see
paragraph A3.3 for information on how journey
purpose is defined). Overall, most journeys were for
commuting (25%) or shopping (23%). There was some variation
between the sexes: 26% of journeys by women were for the
purpose of shopping compared with 19% of men's journeys.
Commuting was the purpose of 29% of journeys reported by
men, and 23% of women's journeys. There was more variation
by age-group, as one would expect. Commuting accounted for
28-34% of journeys by the 20-59 age-groups compared with
much smaller percentages for the 16-19 age group (20%) and
the over 60 age-groups (0-11%). The percentage for which
the journey purpose is education tends to decrease with age
from 23% of journeys by 16-19 year olds to 0-1% of the 50
and over age-groups. The percentage of shopping journeys
seems to increase with age, from 9% of journeys by 16-19
year olds to 39-42% of journeys in the 70 and over age
groups.
4.4.2 Journey purpose varies
with current situation (economic status), as one would
expect. 43% of journeys made by adults in full-time
employment were for commuting. Self-employed people made
14% of their journeys in the course of business. Similarly,
further and higher education students had the highest
percentage of journeys with the purpose of education (29%).
In consequence, journey purpose also tends to vary with
annual net household income. In particular, the purpose was
commuting for 11% of journeys by adults in the "up to
10,000 p.a. household income" group, compared with 31-33%
of journeys by those with an annual household income of
over 20,000.
4.4.3 There was very little variation in
journey purpose with the type of area in which the
respondent lived, in terms of the level of deprivation.
There was slightly more variation in terms of urban/rural
classification. The biggest difference were for commuting
(ranging from 24% of journeys in large urban areas to 33%
of journeys in "remote" small towns) and escort journeys
(3% of journeys in "remote" small towns, to 10% of journeys
in "other" urban areas and "accessible" rural areas).
4.4.4 The bottom of
Table 5 shows that there is only a small amount of variation
in journey purpose between the five years. The proportion
of journeys for the purpose of commuting has increased from
22.7% in 1999 to 25.3% in 2003.
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