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Scottish Household Survey Travel Diary results for 2003

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Statistical Bulletin Trn/2005/2
Scottish Household Survey Travel Diary results for 2003

A Notes and Definitions

A1 General notes

A1.1 Totals may appear to differ slightly from the apparent sums of their component parts, in cases where they have been calculated by adding up the "unrounded" values of the components and then rounding each figure independently. Similarly, percentages may appear not to sum to 100%.

A1.2 The underlying sample numbers shown in different tables, or in different parts of the same tables may not be the same. This may be because:

  • some people were unable to, or did not want to, answer certain questions; or
  • the tables relate to different "populations" (e.g. all adults, all journeys); or
  • the SHS only collects some kinds of information in certain circumstances - for example, the information about a person's occupation, which is used to derive the socio-economic classification, is sought only from people who are in employment or who had been in paid work in the five years prior to the interview); or
  • for some cases, information is not available for some of the variables which were used to produce some of the tables, and therefore those cases cannot be included in some tables, or in some parts of some tables.

A2 The coverage of the SHS Travel Diary

A2.1 The SHS Travel Diary collects information about travel for private purposes or for work or education, provided the main reason for the journey is for the traveller himself or herself to reach the destination. It includes the following types of travel:

  • personal travel for domestic, social or recreational purposes - e.g. driving to and from work, travelling into town to go shopping, and going to see friends;
  • journeys in the course of work, provided the purpose of the journey is for the traveller to reach a destination - e.g. taking a bus into town to attend a meeting, flying down to London on business;
  • journeys made to take or accompany someone else - e.g. taking the children to school, walking someone home.

A2.2 Journeys made by land, air or water within the United Kingdom are included. Journeys which start or end outwith the UK (e.g. a holiday flight from Spain) are excluded. However, if a respondent were to say that he or she had flown back from a holiday abroad on the previous day, the interviewer should record details of the journey home from the airport (but not record details of the flight to the UK).

A2.3 The SHS Travel Diary does not cover:

  • journeys which are made in the course of work by people who are employed (e.g.) as drivers or crew of public transport vehicles; to drive lorries; to deliver letters, parcels, leaflets or goods; as police officers or traffic wardens; etc. However, it does cover their journeys to and from their places of work;
  • travel away from public roads or highways, such as taking a dog for a walk across some fields, walking or climbing in the hills, and yachting or flying for pleasure;
  • journeys of under a quarter of a mile, or less than five minutes on foot;
  • journey stages of under a quarter of a mile, or less than five minutes on foot.

A3 Main definitions

A3.1 Journeys: the basic unit of travel, a journey, is defined as a one-way course of travel having a single main purpose. Outward and return halves of a return journey are treated as two separate journeys. A journey cannot have two separate purposes, and if a single course of travel involves a mid-way change of purpose then it, too, is split into two journeys. However, trivial subsidiary purposes (e.g. a stop to buy a newspaper) are disregarded.

A3.2 Stages: a journey consists of one or more stages. A new stage is defined when there is a change in the form of transport or when there is a change of vehicle requiring a separate ticket.

A3.3 Journey purpose: the purpose of a journey is normally taken to be the activity at the destination, unless that destination is "home" in which case the purpose is defined by the origin of the journey. For example, a journey from "Shops to Home" would be classified as "Shopping", and this means that both the journeys "Work to Shops" then "Shops to Home" would be classified as "Shopping". (NB: if the call at the shops were for a "trivial subsidiary purpose", such as a stop to buy a newspaper, only a single "Work to Home" journey should have been recorded.) A number of other purposes are distinguished, such as "place of work", "in the course of work", "educational establishment", and so on. Separate categories are used when the traveller has no purpose of his or her own, other than to escort or accompany another person; for example, taking a child to school. Some of the categories which are identified in the survey do not appear separately in the tables, because few journeys were recorded for them.

A3.4 Mode of transport: in the code-lists which are used by the interviewers to record details of the journeys, vans are counted with cars; taxis and minicabs are in a separate category from ordinary cars; and there are separate categories for (i) rail and (ii) underground, and for (a) school bus, (b) works bus and (c) ordinary (service) bus. However, some of these modes of transport do not appear separately in the tables, because few journeys were recorded for them. Therefore, the "other" category includes, for example, motorcycles, ferries, aeroplanes and all other forms of transport which are not shown separately.

A3.5 Main mode of transport: where a journey involves more than one mode of transport (e.g. first a bus and then a train), the main mode of a journey is defined, as in the GB National Travel Survey (NTS), as that used for the longest (in distance) stage of the journey. For example, if a journey involved a two mile bus ride followed by a 50 mile train trip, the main mode for the journey would be "rail". It should be noted that this definition does not use the total of the distances travelled by each of the different modes to determine the main mode - for example, a journey involving a 1 mile walk to a bus stop, a 1_ mile bus ride and a 1 mile walk to the ultimate destination would be classified as "main mode = bus", because bus was the mode of transport used for the longest stage of the journey, even though more than half the total distance was covered on foot. If there is no single longest stage, and the two (or more) longest stages do not involve the same mode of transport, the "main" mode of the journey is defined (as in the NTS) as the mode which was used for the last of the longest stages. In practice, because of the way that the distances are calculated (which produces results which appear to be accurate to about the nearest metre, although they will not be as precise as this - see section A5), it is unlikely that there will be many journeys which have two stages which involve exactly the same distance. In this bulletin, unless indicated otherwise, all analysis by mode of transport is based on the main mode of transport for the journey - so, for example, in the analysis of distance travelled, a journey which involved a two mile bus ride followed by a 50 mile train trip would be counted as 52 miles travelled by "main mode" rail.

A3.6 Highest Income Householder: the household reference person for the first part of the interview. This must be a person in whose name the accommodation is owned or rented, or who is otherwise responsible for the accommodation. In households with joint householders, the person with the highest income is taken as the household reference person (if they have exactly the same income, the older is taken as the household reference person).

A3.7 Socio-economic classification: the social class categories used in the SHS in 2002 and earlier years have been superseded. With effect from 2003, the SHS uses the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC), which has been designed to group together, as far as possible, people with similar levels of occupational skills. The version of the classification used for this analysis has eight categories, although the final one is not used in the tables, as it refers only to those who have never worked or are long-term unemployed. The seven classes which appear in the tables are aggregations of thirteen groups ("L1" to "L13"), and are:

  • Higher managerial and professional occupations - persons who employ others in enterprises of 25 or more persons, and who delegate some part of their managerial and entrepreneurial functions onto salaried staff (L1); positions in which there is a 'service relationship' with the employer, and involving general planning and supervision of operations on behalf of the employer (L2); and positions, whether occupied by employers, the self-employed, or employees, covering all types of higher professional work (L3);
  • Lower managerial and professional occupations - positions, whether occupied by employers, the self-employed, or employees, covering lower professional and higher technical occupations (L4); positions in which there is an attenuated form of the 'service relationship' and where those employed in these positions generally plan and supervise operations on behalf of the employer under the direction of senior managers (L5); positions (other than managerial) having an attenuated form of 'service relationship' which cover intermediate occupations included in L7. These positions involve formal and immediate supervision of others engaged in such occupations (L6);
  • Intermediate occupations - positions not involving general planning or supervisory powers, in clerical, sales, service and intermediate technical occupations. Positions in this group are 'mixed' in terms of employment regulations, i.e. are intermediate with respect to the service relationship and the labour contract (L7);
  • Small employers and own account workers - persons (other than higher or lower professionals) who employ others (and thus assume some degree of control over them) and carry out all or most of the entrepreneurial and managerial functions of the enterprise, but employ fewer than 25 employees (L8); self-employed positions in which the persons involved are engaged in any (non-professional) trade, personal service, semi-routine, routine or other occupation, but have no employees other than family workers (L9);
  • Lower supervisory and technical occupations - positions having a modified form of 'labour contract', which cover occupations included in groups L11, L12 and L13, and involve formal and immediate supervision of others engaged in such occupations (L10); positions in which employees are engaged in lower technical and related occupations and thereby have a modified form of the 'labour contract' (L11);
  • Semi-routine occupations - positions in which employees are engaged in semi-routine occupations which have a slightly modified labour contract (L12);
  • Routine occupations - positions where employees are engaged in routine occupations which have a basic labour contract (L13).

Because the SHS only collects occupational information for people in employment, and for people who are not in work but who have been in paid work in the five years prior to the survey, the socio-economic classification is not known in many cases (e.g. people who have been retired for many years). For the purposes of classifying households, the socio-economic classification of the Highest Income Householder is used.

A3.8 Annual net household income: this is the total annual net income (i.e. after taxation and other deductions) from employment, benefits and other sources, which is brought into the household by the highest income householder and/or his/her spouse or partner. This includes any contribution to household finances made by other household members (e.g. for "digs"). Because of refusals or "don't knows", full information for the main components of household income was not collected from about a third of households. Subsequently, the SHS contractors have imputed the missing components of income for almost all these households, using information that was obtained from other households that appeared similar. Depending upon the component of income, the contractors used either "hot deck" imputation (where the sample is divided into sub-groups based on relevant household characteristics, and the imputed values are obtained from randomly-chosen "donor" cases) or "predictive mean" imputation (where the data are used to construct a statistical model of the relationship between income and other household characteristics, which is then used to "predict" the income in cases where a value is to be imputed). The analyses by income given in this bulletin therefore cover all but a couple of percent of households.

A4 The collection and imputation of SHS Travel Diary information about journeys

A4.1 The Travel Diary collects information about journeys that were made on the day before the interview: so, someone interviewed on Sunday will be asked about the journeys he or she made on Saturday. Journeys which start on one day and finish on another should be counted on the basis of the day on which they started: so, if a person interviewed on Sunday went out on Friday evening and returned home in the early hours of Saturday, the journey home on Saturday should be recorded only if it started after midnight (because that would mean that it started on the day before the interview); and if the person went out on Saturday evening, the journey home should be reported provided that it started before midnight.

A4.2 The distribution of interviews, and journeys, over the days of the week

A4.2.1 Interviews are not spread evenly across the week, because some types of people are more likely to be found at home, available for interview, on certain days. Therefore, the results are re-weighted using factors, which depend upon the day of the week and the adult's current situation (or economic status), so that, within each category of "current situation", the reweighted number of interviews is spread evenly across the days of the week. The reweighting process covers all interviews, including those with people who had not made any journeys on the day before the interview. Therefore, the reweighted numbers of people who said that they had made journeys, and the reweighted numbers of journeys themselves, are not necessarily evenly spread over the days of the week.

A4.2.2 This re-weighting is carried out at the Scotland level, so the reweighted number of interviews for a particular local authority may not be evenly spread over the days of the week. Table 24 shows that, at the Scotland level, the reweighted numbers of interviews have been evenly distributed by day of week (with 14% on each day), but that at the local authority level they are not so well spread out. Interviewers were not required to conduct equal numbers of interviews on each day of the week, and an uneven distribution could arise in an area if an interviewer has, for example, another part-time job that restricts interviewing, or perhaps has caring responsibilities (e.g. if children are only at nursery on certain days), or it may be that the interviewer simply prefers to interview on certain days (e.g. at the weekends). Therefore, when looking at the results for particular local authorities or groups of local authorities, please be aware that the journeys reported for that area are not necessarily a representative selection, perhaps because the interviewer(s) there chose to conduct a large percentage of interviews at the weekend, or perhaps because many people were not available for interview during the week.

A4.3 The Travel Diary collects information about three different types of journey:

  • single stage journeys (95.3% in 2003) - such as driving to an out-of-town shopping centre, or going from home to work by bus (assuming that the bus stop is less than a quarter of a mile, or five minutes walk, from home, and therefore that there is no need to record the part of the journey between home and the bus stop as a separate stage; and likewise assuming that the bus stop at the destination is not far from the place of work);
  • multi-stage journeys (3.3% in 2003) - such as going by bus to the station (the first stage, assuming that the walk to the bus stop is below the threshold) and then catching a train to - say - Manchester (the second stage);
  • "series of calls" journeys (1.4% in 2003) - in order to reduce the burden on respondents, travel involving a number of stops for the same main purpose and using the same form of transport is treated as one continuous "series of calls" journey from the first such call to the last one. Only shopping and travel in course of work can be treated in this way. Information is collected about the part of the journey to the first call, the total number of calls, and the part of the journey after the last call. In the case of a doctor's round, for example, the interviewer might ask about the travel from (say) the surgery to the first patient, the total number of calls, and the travel from the final patient back to the surgery (or wherever the doctor went after the last call).

The three types are treated differently to facilitate the interviewing process. There are slight differences in the detailed kinds of information collected about each type of journey, which have implications for the processing and analysis of the data but do not affect the main conclusions that can be drawn.

A4.4 It may be felt that the SHS's results will be biased, tending to over-estimate the number of journeys, because the interviewer asks only about travel on the previous day: for example, people may be more likely to be interviewed on the days on which they made no journeys than on the days on which they made many journeys, since they are more likely to be available for interview on days on which they have not made any journeys. Therefore, the probability of being interviewed on a particular day depends, to some extent, upon the amount of travel on that day. It follows that the day for which the information about journeys is collected (the day before the interview) does not represent a "completely random" choice of day, and therefore that the Travel Diary results may not be properly representative. However, comparisons with the results of the GB National Travel Survey (NTS) suggest that the SHS Travel Diary actually under-estimates the number of journeys made by adults. One reason for this is that the SHS does not collect information about journeys of less than a quarter of a mile, or of less than five minutes by foot. Another is that details of the previous day's travel are provided "off the top of the head", and therefore some journeys may be overlooked. For example, a person may say that he or she went to work, but may not mention the return journey home, or may overlook a journey in the middle of the day. The way in which the information is recorded by the interviewers' computers does not allow the interviewers to check through the details of the reported journeys in order to identify any errors or omissions. However, some changes have been made to the computer systems to reduce the number of journeys that are overlooked.

A4.5 The Scottish Executive has therefore imputed additional journeys, in cases where it is obvious that they are missing - e.g. if the only journey recorded for the day was to work at 8.00 a.m., a return journey was imputed, using the same mode of transport and with the same duration. The imputation process uses information about the time spent at the destination by other people with the same current situation (economic status) who had reported making both an outward journey and a return journey for the same purpose. The average times spent at the destination, and the distributions of such times, are used to impute the times at which the return journeys would start (unless the imputed time would be after midnight, in which case a return journey is not imputed). The Scottish Executive also split what were recorded as "circular"/"round trip" journeys (such as a two-stage journey from A to B and then back to A) into separate outward and return journeys. Imputation in these, and other, cases has increased the total number of journeys in the database by about 9 %. However, it cannot compensate for the full extent of under-reporting of journeys, because there will be many "overlooked" journeys that cannot possibly be imputed from the information that was recorded (e.g. in a case where two journeys were recorded - to work and back - one would not know if the person had forgotten to mention - say - mid-day journeys from work to some shops and back). More information on the methods of imputation used can be found in the Travel Diary User Guide, which is available on the SHS website: www.scotland.gov.uk/shs.

A4.6 A comparison of the results of the SHS, after the completion of the imputation process, with those of the NTS suggests that there is still significant under-counting in the SHS results. The SHS data suggest an average of about 750 journeys per adult per year for the years 1999-2003 (560 on weekdays and 190 on weekends) compared with figures of 1,096 from the Scottish results of the NTS for 1999-2001 (808 on weekdays and 288 on weekends) and 1,007 for 2002-2003 (756 on weekdays and 251 on weekends): about 41% more (slightly higher on weekends). The NTS figures are considered reliable, as they are similar to the NTS results for earlier years, and because the NTS should produce data of better quality than the SHS, for reasons which are given later. Clearly, the imputation process does not compensate fully for the under-reporting of journeys in the SHS. Therefore, most of the analyses in this bulletin do not include any estimates of the total numbers of journeys, or of the total distance travelled, per person per year, as such estimates would undoubtedly be too low. Instead, this bulletin provides information about the characteristics of the journeys which were recorded (such as the percentage made using each mode of transport), which should not be affected greatly by under-reporting (unless, for some reason, the journeys which were reported were markedly atypical of all journeys made by adults). However, some of the results in Tables 22(a) and (b) (estimates of adult and household weekday trip rates) incorporate simple ad-hoc adjustments which try to correct for this undercounting: since the NTS identifies about 41% more journeys per adult on a weekday than the SHS, the SHS-based estimates are multiplied by a factor of about 1.41 in an attempt to compensate for the under-counting. In theory, such adjustments could be made using separate factors for different categories (e.g. if it were found that the extent of the under-counting were greater for certain types of journey or certain population sub-groups), but, for simplicity, only one overall factor has been used to produce the illustrative figures in Table 22.

A4.7 Initial examination of the data collected in the SHS's first few months of interviews identified a number of problems, as a result of which several improvements were made to the interviewers' computer systems, in order to collect better quality data. However, the nature of the SHS is such that it cannot collect travel data of the same quality as are obtained by the GB National Travel Survey (NTS). There are a number of reasons for this:

  • the SHS is a multi-purpose survey, which has transport as just one of its priority topic areas. The NTS is a specialised survey, designed to collect information about travel;
  • the SHS collects information about one day's travel by one randomly-chosen adult member of the household. The NTS collects information about seven days' travel by every member of the household, including children;
  • the SHS interviewee has to recall, off the top of the head, with no prior warning, details of journeys made on the previous day, during an interview on many topics. In the NTS, each member of the household is asked to record, using a special form, information about journeys which are made in a subsequent period of seven days;
  • the SHS does not record journeys of less than a quarter of a mile, or less than five minutes on foot. The NTS includes such journeys. (It should be noted that, in order to reduce the burden on NTS respondents, they are asked to record details of walks of under a mile only on the final day of their travel diary, and these are then "grossed up" to the full seven day period when the data are prepared for analysis);
  • the SHS interviewer normally has only one contact with the randomly-chosen adult member of the household. The NTS interviewer makes contact on several occasions (to make an appointment, if necessary; before the seven day period for the travel diaries starts, to explain the procedures to the household; sometimes, a mid-"week" visit to remind and help the household; following the travel diary period, to pick up the completed forms; and, rarely, a telephone call or a further visit if there are outstanding queries);
  • the SHS interviewers' computers carry out some simple checks on the information as it is collected (e.g. that the time recorded for the end of the journey is after the time at which it was recorded as starting). The NTS also has computer checks. In addition, at the "pick up" visits, the NTS interviewers check the credibility and completeness of the journeys recorded in the travel diaries, sometimes discovering that some journeys had not been recorded, and obtaining details of them. (Inevitably, such scrutiny of the data, and discussions with respondents about what they did and how they recorded it in the travel diary, will identify errors that could not be detected by any computer check on the details that are keyed in.).

Overall, therefore, the NTS data about travel are undoubtedly more comprehensive and of better quality than those of the SHS. However, the NTS's small sample size in Scotland (only about 300 households per year up to 2001; about 900 households per year from 2002) means that it is not suitable for detailed analyses relating to Scotland, such as looking at the differences in travel patterns between different sub-groups of the population.

A5 Origins and destinations, and distances travelled.

A5.1 Origin and destination: the interviewer asks where the person started from, and where he or she went to, and records the origin and destination of each stage of each journey. "Home" and "work" can be recorded easily; for other origins and destinations the interviewer types in as much detail as possible of the address (e.g. the name of a shop, the street and the town). When appropriate, the interviewer can specify that the previous destination is the origin of the current stage / journey. The contractors determine the relevant postcodes at a later stage in the processing of the data from the survey. In cases where only an approximate location is recorded (e.g. "centre of Edinburgh"), an arbitrary postcode (such as that of the main post office) is assigned. In some cases, the contractors may be unable to allocate a postcode, and can only provide a less "precise" indication of the location, such as a postal district (e.g. "EH10"). Inevitably, there are occasions on which the contractors cannot provide any indication of the location of the origin or the destination of a journey. Since the survey started, the interviewers' computer systems have been improved, to collect better "address" data.

A5.2 The interviewer also records the times at which each stage of each journey started and ended. The recording process will only be accurate to - at best - say the nearest five minutes, for example because many people will not remember precisely, or correctly, the times at which some (or all) of their journeys on the previous day started and finished. Therefore, the estimated durations of some journeys will be subject to possibly large percentage errors. Due to coding problems in the CAPI script in October, November and December 1999, the start times of some journeys are missing for about 4% of journeys for 1999 as a whole. For the same reason, the end times are missing for a similar percentage of journeys in 1999. This has an affect on journey duration as duration is derived from the start time and end time of journeys (about 7% of journeys in 1999 have a missing duration). For simplicity, cases for which the duration is not known have been excluded from the table analysing journey durations.

A5.3 Distance travelled: the length of any journey stage is the estimated distance "as the crow flies", based upon the grid co-ordinates of the "centres" of the postcodes (or whatever types of area were recorded) of the origin and destination of that stage of the journey. Therefore, the estimated distance would be zero in the case of a stage for which exactly the same postcode (or other type of area) was recorded (or derived) for both the origin and the destination. For example, if it was known (or deduced) only that the stage involved travel from (say) "EH10" to "EH10", the estimated distance would be zero. However, if it was known (or deduced) that the journey was from "EH10 6UD" to "EH10 6XE", the "crow flies" distance between the "centres" of the two postcodes would be calculated. Clearly, the percentage error in the estimation of distances will tend to be smaller for longer journeys - such as for a journey from "EH10 6UD to "EH6 6QQ", or for one from "EH1" to "G1". (Because the distances are estimated using grid co-ordinates recorded to the nearest metre, they may appear to be accurate to about a metre. However, it must be remembered that the grid co-ordinates relate to the "centres" of the areas concerned, and a journey may start or finish some distance from the "centre" of the recorded area, so the estimated distances are not as precise as might be thought from the number of digits that are produced.)

A5.4 In cases where the interviewer could not obtain sufficient details of the origin and/or destination to enable the contractors to assign a postcode (or other type of area), the Scottish Executive had imputed the distance travelled. The imputation process uses information about the recorded time taken for the trip and an imputed speed for the trip. The imputed speed is based upon information about the speeds of other trips made by the same mode of transport for the same purpose by people who live in the same type of area (in terms of the "urban"/"rural" category), distinguishing between journeys which start in what may be described as "peak" periods (for this purpose, taken as 7:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.) and at other times of the day. Both the average speed and the distribution of speeds for each mode / purpose / area / time category were used to impute the speed for each journey for which this was required. The imputed speed was then multiplied by the recorded journey time to calculate the imputed distance. Overall, the distance was imputed for about 9.6% of all journey stages in 2003.

A5.5 The distance of a multi-stage journey was calculated by adding up the distances of each of its component stages. For series of calls journeys, as information is only collected about the first and last calls, there are no estimates of distance for all the intermediate stages, and therefore the total distance was previously underestimated. However, from April 2003, an additional question was included in the survey to estimate the total distance for series of calls journeys. In addition, as most journeys are not made in a straight line, the "crow flies" distance will underestimate the actual distance travelled.

A6 Area classifications

A6.1 The SHS urban /rural classification: the urban / rural classification shown in the tables was developed for use in analysing the results of the SHS. It is based on settlement sizes, and (for the less-populated areas) the estimated time that would be taken to drive to a settlement with a population of 10,000 or more. The classification is based on postcodes. First, each postcode in Scotland was classed as either "urban" or "non-urban" on the basis of its "density" (measured in terms of the numbers of [a] residential and [b] non-residential addresses per hectare). Then, clumps of adjacent "urban" postcodes, which together contained more than a certain total number of addresses, were grouped together to form "settlements". (Any apparently "non-urban" postcodes which were entirely surrounded by "urban" postcodes, or by a combination of "urban" postcodes and coastline, were reclassified as "urban", and included in the relevant settlements.)

A6.2 Six categories were then defined:

  • Large urban areas - settlements with populations of 125,000 or more. These are around - but are not the same as - Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Because of the way in which settlements are defined, this category may (a) include some areas outwith the boundaries of these four cities, in cases where the settlements extend into neighbouring local authorities, and (b) exclude some "non-urban" areas within the boundaries of these four cities.
  • Other urban areas - other settlements with a population of 10,000 or more
  • "Accessible" small towns - settlements of between 3,000 and 9,999 people, which are within 30 minutes drive of a settlement of 10,000 people or more
  • "Remote" small towns - settlements of between 3,000 and 9,999 people, which are not within 30 minutes drive of a settlement of 10,000 people or more
  • "Accessible" rural areas - settlements of fewer than 3,000 people, which are within 30 minutes drive of a settlement of 10,000 people or more
  • "Remote" rural areas - settlements of fewer than 3,000 people, which are not within 30 minutes drive of a settlement of 10,000 people or more

A6.3 The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD): the SIMD was designed by the Scottish Executive to rank the "data zones" used for the production of Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics in order of deprivation. There are 6,505 data zones, with an average of about 750 residents in each, formed by aggregating Census output areas. The SIMD is based on 31 indicators in the six individual "domains" of "Current Income", "Employment", "Housing", "Health", "Education", "Skills and Training" and "Geographic Access to Services and Telecommunications". More information can be found at the SIMD website ( http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/simd2004/).

A6.4 Households in the SHS sample have been allocated the SIMD value of the data zone which contains the postcode of the residence. In the small number of cases where a postcode is split between more than one data zone, the SIMD value used is that of the data zone into which the largest number of dwellings in that postcode falls. The SIMD values have further been assigned to one of 5 quintiles, with quintile 1 containing the most deprived 20% of data zones in Scotland, and quintile 5 the least deprived 20%. Because the SHS sample is not spread uniformly across Scotland, the quintiles do not necessarily each contain exactly 20% of the households in the SHS sample.

A6.5 Local authority area groupings: a number of tables in this bulletin show groupings of local authorities, rather than individual council areas. This is because the SHS does not have a large sample in most council areas, and is only designed to be representative in such areas over the two-year sweep for which the sample was drawn. Therefore, only the "larger" local authorities (those with samples of about 1,500+ adults in each of the two-year periods) appear individually in these tables. The "smaller" local authorities (those for which the sample size is at most about 1,200 adults - and usually far fewer - in each two-year period) are combined with some neighbouring "small" Council areas for the purpose of producing these new tables. So, for example, these tables give figures for "Tayside" but not for Angus, Dundee or Perth & Kinross individually. The individual local authorities, and the groupings of Council areas, that appear in these tables are:

Area (for these tables):

Local authority area(s) included:

Highland / Islands

Highland, Eilean Siar, Orkney, Shetland

Grampian

Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Moray

Tayside

Angus, Dundee City, Perth & Kinross

Central

Clackmannanshire, Falkirk, Stirling

Fife

Fife

Edinburgh

Edinburgh City

Lothians

East Lothian, Midlothian, West Lothian

Glasgow

Glasgow City

Dunbartonshire / Argyll & Bute

Argyll & Bute, East Dunbartonshire, West Dunbartonshire

Renfrewshire / Inverclyde

East Renfrewshire, Inverclyde, Renfrewshire

North Lanarkshire

North Lanarkshire

South Lanarkshire

South Lanarkshire

Ayrshire

East Ayrshire, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire

Borders / Dumfries & Galloway

Dumfries & Galloway, Scottish Borders

A7 Possible sampling variability, and "95% confidence limits" for SHS estimates

A7.1 Although the SHS's sample is chosen at random, the people who take part in the survey will not necessarily be a representative cross-section. For example, purely by chance, the sample could include disproportionate numbers of certain types of people, in which case the survey's results would be affected. In general, the smaller the sample from which an estimate is produced, the greater the likelihood that the estimate could be misleading. As an example, Table 5 provides information about journeys by purpose reported by adults. In some cases, the figure for some of the modes of transport in the "by main mode" section are based on data for only two or three hundred journeys, each of which therefore represents about 0.3% to 0.5% of the total. So, which particular households were selected for inclusion in the sample could make a significant difference to the results, and they are therefore subject to considerable potential sampling variability. For example, the estimate of the percentage of journeys by bicycle for shopping would have been about two percentage points higher had the SHS sample included, purely by chance, just two more adults who had made shopping trips by bicycle (assuming that each reported two journeys by bicycle for the purpose of shopping - e.g. one to the shops and one returning home). Results produced from a small sample could therefore be greatly affected by sampling variability. The larger the sample, the less likely it is that the results will be affected greatly by sampling variability.

A7.2 The likely extent of sampling variability can be quantified, by calculating the "standard error" associated with the estimate of a quantity produced from a random sample. Statistical sampling theory states that, on average:

  • only about one sample in three would produce an estimate that differed from the (unknown) true value of that quantity by more than one standard error;
  • only about one sample in twenty would produce an estimate that differed from the true value by more than two standard errors;
  • only about one sample in 400 would produce an estimate that differed from the true value by more than three standard errors.

By convention, the "95% confidence interval" for a quantity is defined as the estimate plus or minus about twice the standard error (from sampling theory, the interval is plus or minus 1.96 times the standard error), because there is only a 5% chance (on average) that a sample would produce an estimate that differs from the true value of that quantity by more than this amount.

A7.3 There is no simple "rule of thumb" for the size of standard errors: the standard error of the estimate of a percentage depends upon several things:

  • the value of the percentage itself;
  • the size of the sample (or sub-sample) from which it was calculated (i.e. the number of sample cases corresponding to 100%);
  • the sampling fraction (i.e. the fraction of the relevant population that is included in the sample); and
  • the "design effect" associated with the way in which the sample was selected (for example, a "clustered" random sample would be expected to have larger standard errors - but lower fieldwork costs - than a simple random sample of the same size).

A7.4 Table 23 shows the "95% confidence limits" for estimates of a range of percentages calculated from sub-samples of a range of sizes (NB: the confidence limits for estimates of x% and for (100-x)% are the same). The table was produced in the same way as the tables of "95% confidence limits" in the "Annual Report" volumes of Scotland's People (see section B4), but has a more detailed breakdown of the smaller sample sizes.

A7.5 The interpretation of an entry in Table 23 is best explained by an example:

  • the value in the cell at the intersection of the "45% or 55%" column and the "800" row is 4.1;
  • this means that the "95% confidence limits" for an estimate of 55% which is produced from a sub-sample of 800 are +/- 4.1%-points;
  • so the "95% confidence interval" for the estimate is 55% +/- 4.1%-points (i.e. from about 50.9% to around 59.1%, assuming that the value of the estimate is 55.0%);
  • or, on average, only 1 in 20 sub-samples of size 800 would produce an estimate that differs from the (unknown) true value of this quantity (if it is around 55%) by more than 4.1%-points.

A7.6 As an example of the use of this table, it will be seen from figure at the end of the first row in the "by current situation" part of Table 3 that there were 835 journeys reported by adults in further or higher education in the survey in 2003. The first figure in that row of Table 3 shows that an estimated 26% of journeys by such students were made by foot. Because that estimate was produced from data for only 835 journeys, sampling variability could (by chance) produce an error of three or four percentage points. The entry in the cell at the intersection of the "25%" column and the "800" row in Table 23 shows that the "95% confidence limits" for the estimate will be roughly +/- 3.6%-points. This means that there is a 1-in-20 chance that the estimate differs from the true value by more than 3.6%-points. It follows that there is roughly a 1-in-3 chance that the estimate differs from the true value by more than 1.8%-points. Clearly, estimates based on smaller samples have wider confidence limits. (It should be emphasised that these are indicative confidence limits: there are reasons for believing that estimates based on a particular number of journeys may be subject to greater sampling errors than estimates based on the same number of households, and Table 23 was calculated on the latter basis.)

A7.7 Because the survey's estimates may be affected by sampling errors, apparent differences of a few percentage points between the figures for two sub-groups of the population may not be "significant": it could be that the true values for the two sub-groups are similar, but the random selection of households for the survey has, by chance, produced a sample which gives a high estimate for one sub-group and a low estimate for the other. A difference between two sub-groups is "statistically significant" at the conventional "5%" level if it is so large that fewer than one random sample in twenty would be expected to produce a difference of that size (or greater) purely by chance, if the two sub-groups' true values were the same. One way of assessing significance at the 5% level involves comparing the difference with the 95% confidence limits for the two estimates. Suppose that these are +/- 3.0%-points and +/- 4.0%-points, respectively. Clearly:

  • a difference which is less than the magnitude of the greater of the limits (which, in this case, is 4.0%-points) is not significant; and
  • a difference which is greater than the sum of the magnitudes of the limits (in this case 3.0%-points + 4.0%-points = 7.0%-points) is significant.

Statistical sampling theory suggests that a difference whose magnitude is between these values is significant if it is greater than the square root of the sum of the squares of the magnitudes of the limits for the two estimates - in this case, the square root of (3.0 2 + 4.0 2) - i.e. the square root of (9 + 16) - i.e. the square root of 25, which is 5.0. So, in this case, a 5.0%-point difference would be considered statistically significant (at the conventional 5% level). Similar calculations will indicate whether or not other pairs of estimates differ significantly.

A7.8 The same approach can be used to assess the statistical significance of the difference between the figures for a particular area for the two two-year periods 1999/2000 and 2001/2002. For example, if the estimates for the two periods had 95% confidence limits of +/ 3.0%-points and +/- 4.0%-points respectively, a 5.0 %-point difference would be considered statistically significant (at the conventional "5%" level).

A7.9 However, when assessing the statistical significance of results from among the sets of sample estimates for each of the groups of local authority areas, please remember that there may well be occasions on which sampling variability produces the kind of difference between areas (or change between periods) that would be expected to arise, purely by chance, in only one sample in twenty - or in only one sample in a hundred, or only one sample in a thousand. Therefore, one may well find some apparently "significant" results that are actually just the result of sampling variability, having arisen by chance.

A7.10 The above information relates only to sampling variability. The survey's results could also be affected by non-contact / non-response bias: the characteristics of the people who should have been in the survey but who could not be contacted, or who refused to take part, could differ markedly from those of the people who were interviewed. If that is the case, the SHS's results will not be representative of the whole population. Without knowing the true values (for the population as a whole) of some quantities, one cannot be sure about the extent of any such biases in the SHS. However, comparison of SHS results with information from other sources suggests that they are broadly representative of the overall Scottish population, and therefore that any non-contact or non-response biases are not large overall. However, such biases could, of course, be more significant for some sub-groups of the population or in certain Council areas, particularly those which have the highest non-response rates. In addition, because it is a survey of private households, the SHS does not cover some sections of the population - for example, it does not collect information about many students in halls of residence (see paragraph B2.3). The " Fieldwork Outcomes" and " Methodology" volumes of Scotland's People (see section B4) provide more information on these matters.

B The Scottish Household Survey: general information

B1 Background, and topics covered

B1.1 The Scottish Household Survey (SHS) started in February 1999. Its principal purpose is to collect information in its main areas of Transport, Social Inclusion, and (from 1999 to 2002) Local Government issues, but other topics are covered, such as household composition, housing and amenities, overcrowding and sharing in housing, employment or unemployment, income, assets and savings, credit and debt, health, disabilities and care, and other topics. The SHS provides the first representative Scottish data on many subjects, such as access to the Internet, daily travel patterns, etc. The Annex lists the topics which have been included since the survey started.

B1.2 The SHS was needed because the existing surveys which cover such topics are often too infrequent, insufficiently detailed, or based on too small samples to provide reliable information for Scotland (or areas within Scotland). For example, prior to 2002 the National Travel Survey's sample included only about 300 Scottish households per year, so it could not provide any information about year to year changes in travel patterns, nor could it show how they vary between different parts of Scotland. The Scottish Executive initially funded the SHS for four years: 1999 to 2002 inclusive. The contract for the survey was awarded following a competitive tender. The SHS is conducted jointly by two firms: System Three (now called TNS-Global) and MORI Scotland. The Scottish Executive awarded a contract for another four years to the same contractors after a further competitive tender.

B1.3 Where appropriate, the SHS uses the harmonised concepts and questions for government social surveys which have been developed by the Government Statistical Service, to facilitate comparison with the results of other government surveys. However, differences in sampling and survey methods mean that SHS results will differ from those of other surveys. It must also be remembered that the SHS is not designed to produce statistics on (eg) unemployment or income: it collects such information only for selecting the data for particular groups of people (such as the unemployed or the low-paid) for further analysis, or for use as "background" variables when analysing other topics (such as the means of travel or the frequency of driving).

B2 Sampling arrangements

B2.1 The SHS is a continuous cross-sectional survey: interviewing takes place all year round. Each year, about 15,500 households across Scotland are interviewed. The SHS is designed so that the interviews from each quarter will provide results which are representative of Scotland as a whole. In addition, the survey design is such that results will be available for each of the larger local authorities annually (those with an achieved sample of over 750 per year), and for all 32 Scottish local authorities, regardless of size, over two years. The SHS design therefore involves drawing a sample which will produce about 31,000 household interviews which are spread over two years. The requirement to produce results for every local authority, regardless of size, after two years, means that higher sampling fractions are used for Council areas with small populations, in order to ensure a minimum of about 550 household interviews in each area over the two years. A reweighting process (described later) ensures that the variation in sampling fractions does not make the results unrepresentative of Scotland as a whole. An "average" Council would have about 1,000 household interviews over the two years. Annual results are available only for the few Councils for which there are sufficient interviews per year. Of course, the smaller the sample upon which the results for a Council are based, the more carefully they will have to be used, and there might be cases where they do not appear sufficiently reliable to be used.

B2.2 The SHS is intended to be a survey of private households. For the purposes of the survey, a household is defined as one person or a group of people living in accommodation as their only or main residence and either sharing at least one meal a day or sharing the living accommodation. A student's term-time address is taken as his/her "main residence", in order that he/she is counted where he/she lives for most of the year.

B2.3 The sample was drawn from the Small User file of the Postcode Address File (PAF), which is a listing of all active address points maintained by the Post Office. The Small User file excludes addresses at which an average of more than 25 items of post are delivered per day. (Blocks of flats etc, which have several dwellings at the same address, are not excluded from the Small User file: in such cases, the file's Multiple Occupancy Indicator is used to count each dwelling separately for the selection of the sample.) Therefore, people in certain types of accommodation (such as nurses homes, student halls of residence, hostels for the homeless, other communal establishments, mobile homes, and sites for travelling people) will be excluded from the SHS unless the accommodation is listed on the Small User file of the PAF and it represents the sole or main residence of the people concerned. So, the SHS's target population includes some - but not all - students, for example. People living in bed and breakfast accommodation may be included, if it is listed in the Small User file of the PAF and if it is their sole or main residence. Prisons, hospitals and military bases are excluded.

B2.4 In order that the sample would be representative of each Council's area, the ten main summary groups of the Scottish MOSAIC geo-demographic indicator were used to define strata within each Council area, and a sample of an appropriate size was then drawn within each stratum within each Council area. Scottish MOSAIC is a neighbourhood classification system developed by Experian. It draws on a large number of Census variables, augmented by some published non-Census information, to distinguish between postcodes in terms of types of housing, housing densities and household characteristics. It uses statistical analysis of variables such as home ownership, car ownership, age, health, employment status and occupation to identify types of neighbourhoods with similar characteristics. All households within a given postcode are regarded as being in the same type of neighbourhood: that to which the postcode as a whole is classified. Further information about MOSAIC can be obtained from Experian (the company's Web site is at www.experian.com).

B2.5 In the areas of the nine Councils which have the highest population densities, the sample of addresses was drawn at random (within each geo-demographic stratum within each Council) at the start of the two-year period. The resulting addresses were then grouped into batches for allocation as interviewer assignments.

B2.6 For cost-effectiveness, the design of the sample clustered the interviews in the remaining 22 Councils. Enumeration Districts (EDs) were used as the Primary Sampling Unit. An ED contains, on average, about 150 households. At the start of the two-year period, EDs were selected at random (within each geo-demographic stratum within each Council) with probabilities proportional to their numbers of addresses (taking account of the MOI values and the required variation in sampling fractions between Councils). Then, nearer the time that the interviews in an ED are due to take place, addresses within that ED are selected at random, using the current PAF.

B3 Interviewing, response rates and reweighting

B3.1 The survey interviews, which lasted an average of 44 minutes in 2001/2002, are carried out in respondents' homes using Computer Aided Personal Interviewing (CAPI) by what is now TNS-Global and MORI Scotland. The interview has two parts. The first part of the interview is carried out with the Highest Income Householder (the household reference person - see paragraph A3.6) or his/her spouse or partner, and took on average 18 minutes in 2001/2002. This collects mainly factual information about the composition and characteristics of the household. Some questions are asked in respect of each household member. The second part is with a randomly-chosen adult (aged 16+) member of the household - it lasted, on average, 26 minutes in 2001/2002. This focuses more on individual attitudes and behaviours. Often, both parts of the interview are with the same person - this is always the case in a single adult household. The use of the two-part approach means that, after reweighting (and assuming that there are no non-response biases), the results from the first part interviews should be representative of Scottish households, and the results from the second part interviews should be representative of Scottish adults.

B3.2 The response rate for the first part, after taking account of 'deadwood' in the sample of addresses (such as small shops and offices, and properties which have been demolished or are unoccupied), was 67% in 2003. Among households which participated, the response rate for the "random adult" part of the interview was 94%.

B3.3 The data are then reweighted to take account of the unequal probabilities of selection inherent in the sample design: the over-sampling (relative to their numbers of households) of the Councils with smaller populations, in order to obtain a minimum number of interviews in each Council; and the under-sampling (relative to their share of the adult population) of adults living in multi-adult households, because only one "random adult" is interviewed in each household. Comparisons with data from other sources, such as the National Travel Survey, the 2001 Census and the 1996 Scottish House Condition Survey, suggested that the reweighted data are broadly representative of the Scottish household population; consequently, no further weighting of the main SHS data has been carried out. (Additional reweighting is required for the Travel Diary data, as described in section A4.2.)

B4 Published results, and anonymised data

B.4.1 From 2003, Scotland's People - the SHS annual report, consists of four volumes, the first two of which are published annually:

(a) a detailed Annual Report, which provides many tables of SHS results. Latest available:

SHS 2003 Annual Report - 160 pages, 20 per copy, ISBN 0-7559-4288-4

(b) Fieldwork Outcomes, which contains information about the targets and achieved outcomes, and data quality. Latest available:

SHS Fieldwork Outcomes 2003 - 26 pages, 2 per copy, ISBN 0-7559-4285-X

(c) Methodology, which contains information about sampling and data collection methods. Latest available:

SHS Methodology 2003/04 - 22 pages, 2 per copy, ISBN 0-7559-4284-1

(d) Questionnaire. Latest available:

Questionnaire Apr. 2003 to Dec. 2004 - 46 pages, 2 per copy, ISBN 0-7559-4286-8

Copies of these publications are available from Blackwell's Bookshop, 53 South Bridge, Edinburgh, EH1 1YS, and also on the SHS website (see paragraph B5.3)

B4.2 This bulletin is the fourth in the Scottish Household Survey Travel Diary Results series of bulletins. It is part of a larger series of Transport statistical bulletins which provide some Transport-related results from the SHS. The others are:

  • Household Transport: some Scottish Household Survey results, the most recent edition of which was published in November 2004. The topics covered include the availability of cars for private use; expenditure on fuel for cars; people's possession of driving licences and their frequency of driving; whether, and if so, how, drivers make particular types of journeys; how easy or difficult it would be for drivers to use another mode of transport; people's use of journey planning information; people's use of local bus and train services; people's views on local bus and train services; people's frequency of walking and cycling; travel to work (including place of work, reasons for method used and reasons for not using public transport, where drivers park, and method of travel to work one year ago); adults' travel to place of education; and travel to school.

  • Transport across Scotland: some Scottish Household Survey results for parts of Scotland, the most recent edition of which was published in February 2004. It provides statistics for each Council area, and for each category of the urban/rural classification. The topics covered include the availability for private use of motor vehicles, cars and company cars; people's possession of driving licences and their frequency of driving; people's frequency of walking and cycling; the accessibility and frequency of bus services; people's views on the convenience of public transport; the usual method of travel to work; whether people work from home; whether car commuters could use public transport; where people who drive to work park; and travel to school.

B4.3 SHS results are also included in other Scottish Executive publications, such as Scottish Transport Statistics.

B4.4 Anonymised copies of the survey data are deposited at the UK Data Archive.

B5 Enquiries and further information

B5.1 General enquiries about the SHS should be addressed to the survey's Project Manager:

SHS Project Manager
Social Research
Scottish Executive
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh, EH6 6QQ

Tel: 0131 244 8420
Fax: 0131 244 7573
E-mail: shs@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

B5.2 Enquiries about the statistics in this bulletin should be addressed to:

Stephen Hinchliffe
Transport Statistics
Scottish Executive
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh, EH6 6QQ

Tel: 0131 244 1457
Fax: 0131 244 0888
E-mail: transtat@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

B.5.3 Further information about the survey can be found on the SHS website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/shs

This website provides some background to the survey, information about the progress of the survey, and the published results. Copies of the Transport Statistics bulletins can be found on the Transport Statistics website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/transtat/latest

B5.4 Please contact the Project Manager if you wish to be added to an e-mail mailing list to be kept informed of any significant updates to the information on the SHS website. The Project Manager will also, on request, distribute paper copies of information about the survey, and about significant developments when they occur, to people who are unable to access the website.

Annex Topics covered by the Scottish Household Survey: 1999 to 2003

This is a list of all the topics which the survey has covered since it started in February 1999. It indicates which questions were asked in only some of the years.

QUESTIONS ASKED OF EITHER THE HIGHEST INCOME HOUSEHOLDER OR HIS/HER SPOUSE/PARTNER

HA - Household composition

For each member of household:

  • Date of birth
  • Sex
  • Relationship to highest income householder 1 (1999 to March 2003)
  • All household relationships (from April 2003)
  • Ethnic group
  • Religion (from January 2001)
  • Main economic activity
  • Marital status
  • Languages: needs for translation (from April 2003)

HB - Property

  • Property type
  • Number of floors and lowest level of floor
  • Tenure

HC - Amenities

  • Sharing/concealed households, number of rooms shared, whether by choice
  • Number of bedrooms in property
  • Whether household has full, partial or no central heating (from 2002)
  • Consumer durables in household (telephone, computer/PC) (1999 to March 2003)
  • Access to email/internet from home (1999, 2000 and 2003)
  • Which household members have access to the Internet for their personal use and where internet is accessed (from 2001)
  • Methods of accessing internet (from April 2003)
  • Recycling (asked of randomly selected adult 2000 to March 2003, moved to household section 2003)
  • Whether recycle glass bottles, plastic, metal cans, newspapers etc.
  • Reasons for not recycling

HD - Transport

  • Personal mobility (asked in respect of each adult aged 16+):
  • Whether holds driving licence and which type (1999 to March 2003) 2
  • Frequency of driving (1999 to March 2003) 2
  • Reasons for driving (1999 and 2000 only)
  • Eligibility for reduced fares, concessionary passes (for each adult 16+) (1999 to March 2003) 2
  • Orange badge / Blue European Parking card holders (NB: "Blue badges" replaced Orange badges over the period from April 2000 to March 2003)
  • Motor vehicles available to household (asked in respect of each vehicle):
  • Vehicle type; own or company car; Vehicle Registration Mark (1999-2001) or age of vehicle (1999 to March 2003)
  • Principal and other drivers of each vehicle (1999 to March 2003)
  • Annual mileage of vehicle (1999 to March 2003, banded w.e.f. 2002)
  • Subsidisation by employer and personal fuel costs (1999-2001)
  • Number of motor vehicles available 12 months ago (2000 to March 2003)
  • Cars available to household (from April 2003)
  • Total number of cars available
  • Total expenditure on fuel for all the cars (asked only in "odd" years)
  • (Adult) bicycles available to household (1999, 2000 and from 2002)
  • Public transport
  • Time to nearest bus stop
  • Frequency of buses

HE - Children in household

  • Use of childcare (paid or unpaid) (1999-2001)
  • Reasons for using childcare (1999-2001)

For randomly chosen child (from April 2003)

  • Use of childcare (paid or unpaid) (from April 2003)
  • Use of free part-time nursery places for 3 to 4 year olds (from April 2003)
  • Reasons for using childcare (from April 2003)
  • Satisfaction with childcare (from April 2003)

For randomly chosen school child:

  • School attended
  • Name and location (from 'pop-up' list of schools in local authority area)
  • Distance from home to school (from April 2003, asked only if child's school not found in "pop-up" list)
  • Satisfaction with schooling
  • Mode(s) of transport usually used to/from school (asked about 'from school' mode in 1999 and 2000 only)
  • Reason for mode choice (asked about 'from school' in 1999 and 2000 only)
  • Suitability of public transport for school journeys
  • Reasons for not using public transport

HF - Health, disabilities and care

  • Which household members, if any, have a limiting long-standing illness, health problem or disability
  • Description of condition (from 2001)
  • Which household members, if any, require regular care or help
  • Who provides care
  • Weekly hours of care provided by household members/non-household members

HG - Economic activity

Applies to Highest Income Householder and partner/spouse:

  • Whether in paid work

Applies to those not in paid work:

  • Whether on a government training scheme
  • Type of scheme
  • Whether away from paid job or doing unpaid work for own or a relative's business.
  • Whether looking for paid work/government training
  • Whether waiting to take up a job that they have already obtained (from 2000)
  • Availability for work and reasons for non-availability
  • Reasons for not looking for work or training/length of time looking
  • If retired, duration of retirement
  • If unemployed, duration of unemployment (1999 only)
  • Whether had a paid job in last 5 years
  • Number of spells of unemployment in last 5 years
  • Reasons for leaving last job and time there

Applies to those in paid work:

  • Number of current jobs
  • Main job (or last job if unemployed < 5 years or retired < 5 years)
  • Job title, type of industry, supervisory duties
  • Whether employee or self-employed
  • Full- or part-time
  • Temporary (seasonal) or permanent
  • (SIC, SOC, SEG, RG Class can be derived from this data)

HH - Household income

Applies to Highest Income Householder and partner/spouse:

  • Income from paid employment/self-employment
  • Net pay (usual and at last time), period covered by this, hours worked. For main and other jobs
  • Benefit income
  • Benefits received, which partner is eligible, value of each benefit received (or total benefit income, if not known separately), period of payments
  • Other regular income
  • Sources of this, main recipient, amount from each source, period of payments

HI - Assets and savings

Applies to Highest Income Householder and Spouse:

  • Whether has bank/building society account
  • Whether has a credit union account (from 2002)
  • Other savings or investments
  • Total value of savings/investments (banded)

HJ - Housing costs

  • Whether household has a mortgage/loan on this property
  • Whether endowment or repayment mortgage
  • Mortgage/loan repayments
  • Amount outstanding on mortgage/loan (from April 2003)
  • Rent costs - before and after Housing Benefit, period of payments
HK - Household finances
  • Whether has household has home contents or house/building insurance
  • Household money worries (1999 and 2000 only)
  • How household is managing financially (1999 to March 2003 only)

Permission to be re-contacted for follow-up research

QUESTIONS ASKED OF RANDOMLY SELECTED ADULT (AGED 16+)

RA - Housing

  • Time at current address
  • Any change in tenure of current property
  • Tenure of previous home
  • Location of previous home (if moved in the last 12 months) (1999 and 2000 only)
  • Experience of homelessness (from January 2001)
  • How many times in last 5 years (1999 to March 2003)
  • How many times in last 2 years (from April 2003)
  • Whether ever applied to Council because of homelessness (2001 to March 2003)
  • Whether ever had to sleep rough (2001 to March 2003)
  • Experience of 'hidden' homelessness in the past 2 years (including sleeping rough/applying to the Council) (from April 2003)
  • Sources of help/type of help received/reasons for not receiving help (from April 2003)
  • Whether wish to move to separate home/household (from January 2001)
  • How long has respondent been looking for a separate home
  • Whether has got name on Council or Housing Association list
  • Whether looking to rent or buy

RB - Local neighbourhood/community safety

  • General satisfaction with local neighbourhood
  • Particular likes and dislikes about local neighbourhood
  • Perceptions of crime problems/'incivilities' in local neighbourhood
  • Fear of crime
  • Frequency of travelling by bus (from 2001)/train (from 2001)/walking in the locality (2001 only) in the evening and perceptions of safety during these activities
  • Perception of safety when walking alone in neighbourhood at night or alone at home at night (from 2002)
  • Social Networks
  • Contact with relatives/friends/neighbours in past fortnight (2000 to March 2003)
  • Involvement in local community (2000 to March 2003)
  • Ability to rely on people living in neighbourhood (2000 to March 2003)
  • Disputes with neighbours (from 2000)
  • Number of disputes with neighbours in past 12 months
  • Whether reported to police or local council
  • Satisfaction with the way the police/council responded to the dispute
  • Experience of crime
  • Household's experience of housebreaking (1999-2001), vehicle crime (1999-2001) or other crime against property (2001 only) in the last year
  • Respondent's level of worry about being a victim of crime, including housebreaking, theft, vehicle crime, assault, harassment (from 2002)
  • Effect of fear of crime on respondents quality of life (from 2002)
  • Experience of physical assault/attack/mugging in neighbourhood (from 2001)
  • Fire Safety
  • Whether household has a working smoke alarm, any fires in the last 12 months, frequency, cause(s), location, method of discovery (1999-2000)

RC - Education and Lifelong learning

  • All educational qualifications held
  • Whether currently in education or training
  • Whether participated in education, training or learning in past 5 years (2001 to March 2003)
  • Likelihood of participating in education, training or learning activity in next 12 months (2001 to March 2003)
  • Internet access (from 2001)
  • When first used the internet (from 2002)
  • Hours per week spent using internet for personal use
  • Methods for accessing internet
  • Whether has a broadband internet connection and which type (from 2002)
  • Uses that are currently made of the internet and aspirations for future uses

RD - Transport to work/educational establishment

  • Whether respondent holds a driving licence (from April 2003) 3
  • Location of (main) place of work/educational establishment
  • If works at or from home
  • What the balance is between working at home and elsewhere (from 2002; also obtains estimated percentage of working hours spent at home from April 2003)
  • Availability and use of car when working at/from home (from April 2003)
  • If works 'flexi' time (from April 2003)
  • Usual mode of transport and reasons
  • Why respondent doesn't use public transport (also identifies the "main" reason from April 2003)
  • If by car/van
  • How this is arranged (i.e. own car, car-sharing etc.)
  • Type of parking
  • Suitability of public transport
  • Whether in work a year ago, mode of transport then and reasons for any change in mode (from April 2003)
  • How often respondent drives a car/van for private purposes (from April 2003) 3
  • "Car dependency": whether respondent makes different types of journey; if so, whether by car or other means; if always by car, how easy would it be to make these journeys without using a car. (from April 2003)

RE - Other Transport

  • Annual personal mileage not paid for by employer (1999 to March 2003)
  • Amount spent on public transport fares in last week (1999 to March 2003)
  • Frequency of cycling in previous week - (a) "as a means of transport" and (b) "for pleasure / to keep fit"
  • Frequency of walking in previous week - for (a) "transport" and (b) "pleasure / keep fit"
  • If non-driver (from HD), reasons for not driving (1999 to March 2003)
  • Reasons for never learning to drive (1999-2000)
  • Extent of use of local bus and train in last month and attitude to different aspects of bus service and train service (from 2002)
  • Reasons for not using buses more often (from 2002 only asked of those who use buses less than once a week; from April 2003, also identifies the "main" reason)
  • Whether injured in a road accident in past 12 months, and whether driver, passenger, pedestrian etc (1999 to March 2003)
  • Use of information sources for planning journeys by (a) car etc (b) public transport (from April 2003)
  • Knowledge of Transport Direct (from April 2003)
  • Use of Transport Direct (from May 2004) - frequency, purposes, types of journey, views on its usefulness

Travel diary

(for each journey made on previous day. For multi-stage journeys, obtain for each stage similar information to that collected for "single stage journey")

  • Whether a single stage journey, multi-stage journey or a series of calls
  • If a single stage journey:
  • Purpose
  • If "shopping", whether "main food", "other food" or "non-food" shopping
  • Mode (If car, number of occupants)
  • Origin and destination
  • Start time and end time
  • Whether delayed by congestion (car driver) or other reasons (bus/train passenger), and (if so) how much time lost (from April 2003)
  • Information on parking - whether paid for and (if so) type, cost and time spent at parking space (from April 2003)
  • If a series of calls
  • Purpose
  • If "shopping", whether "main food", "other food" or "non-food" shopping
  • Mode
  • Total number of calls
  • For travel to first call and travel from final call ( separately for each):

    • origin and destination
    • start and end time
    • whether delayed by congestion (car driver) or other reasons (bus/train passenger), and (if so) how much time lost (from April 2003)
    • information on parking - whether paid for and, if so, type, cost and time spent at parking space (from April 2003)
  • Estimated total distance travelled (from April 2003)

Services and local government

  • Contact with local council over past 12 months (1999 to March 2003)
  • Satisfaction with way enquiry was handled (1999 to March 2003)
  • Frequency of use of local services (1999-2000)
  • Satisfaction with local services used (1999-2000)
  • Knowledge of and contact with local Councillor (1999 to March 2003)
  • Perceptions of local councils (1999 to March 2003)

RF - Volunteering (from January 2000 onwards) and satisfaction with local services

  • Whether given up any time in the last 12 months to help any clubs, charities, campaigns or organisations in an unpaid capacity
  • Number and type of club/charity/campaign/organisation
  • Type of activity
  • Number of hours given up in past 4 weeks
  • Donations to charity (2000 only)
  • Perception of convenience of local services (including post office, bank, doctor, grocers pharmacy, hospital outpatients department, public transport)

RG - Health and disability

  • Self-perception of general health in last 12 months (1999 to March 2003)
  • Whether has a concessionary travel pass (from April 2003) 3
  • Whether registered with GP (1999 to March 2003)
  • Number of times seen GP in past 12 months (1999 to March 2003)
  • How many of these were home visits (2002 only)
  • Satisfaction with GP/family doctor service (1999 to March 2003)
  • Whether has long-standing illness, health problem or disability
  • Whether has concessionary travel pass (from April 2003)
  • Limitations on daily activities (e.g. climbing stairs, walking, using a bus)
  • Existence of adaptations to home or equipment to help respondent
  • Need for any further equipment or adaptations
  • Whether has a home help
  • Who provides service
  • Satisfaction with service provided
  • Whether provides regular help or care to any non-household members, relationship to this person/people
  • Number of hours per week
  • Limitations this puts on paid work
  • Smoking behaviour

(Economic activity and income sections asked only if the random adult is not highest income householder or their partner/spouse, OR if the random adult is highest income householder or their partner/spouse AND the data is missing in the 'household' section)

RH - Economic activity

  • Same questions asked as in Household Section

RI - Income

  • Same questions asked as in Household Section

July-September 1999: questions regarding voting behaviour in local council elections, the Scottish Parliament election on 6 th May 1999 and the European Parliament election held on 10 th June 1999

May-July 2003: questions regarding voting behaviour in local council elections and the Scottish Parliament election on 1 st May 2003

SM1 - Social mobility (2001 only)

  • Job title and staff responsibility of father when respondent was 14 years old
  • Job title and staff responsibility of mother when respondent was 14 years old

Permission to be re-contacted for follow-up research

1 The Highest Income Householder (HIH) is taken as the household reference person for the first part of the interview. This must be a person in whose name the accommodation is owned or rented, or who is otherwise responsible for the accommodation. In households with joint householders, the person with the highest income is taken as the household reference person. If householders have the same income, the older is taken as the household reference person.

2 From April 2003, the randomly-chosen adult is asked about any driving licence held, the frequency of driving and any concessionary travel pass held.

3 Until March 2003, such information was collected in the first part of the interview, using questions which were asked in respect of each adult member of the household.

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Page updated: Thursday, March 24, 2005