« Previous | Contents | Next »
Listen
Chapter Eight: Access and Transport
Access and transport
Access to services is included as a domain in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. The access domain, however, is not correlated with the other five SIMD domains (income, employment, education, health and housing). The access domain was included in the SIMD because it captures a set of problems such as financial cost, time and inconvenience at an area level.
Differences in access to various services at the small area level are very closely related to the differences between urban, rural and remote areas. When comparing access in different areas, care must be taken to account for the different issues facing people in rural and urban areas.
Key points
- Access deprivation is positively correlated with rural areas, which tend to be in the middle SIMD deciles.
- Drive times to services are lower in urban areas and the 15% most deprived areas.
- Sixty per cent of people living in the 15% most deprived areas have no access to a car for private use, compared with 27 per cent in the rest of Scotland.
- People in the 15% most deprived areas are more likely to live within five kilometres of work and are more likely to take the bus or walk to work than those in the rest of Scotland.
Drive times to services: urban and rural differences
The SIMD uses average drive times to different services as a measure of access deprivation. It is important to consider that access is also influenced by public transport availability. There are different issues facing urban and rural areas in terms of transport. In rural areas the lack of public transport means that it is often necessary for residents in these areas to own or have access to a car, while in urban areas, traffic congestion may necessitate the use of public transport. It is important to consider the availability of public transport alongside access in terms of drive times. The Scottish Executive is looking in to ways of incorporating public transport information (rail and bus frequency) into the Geographic Access domain of the SIMD. Work is also underway to improve estimates of ferry times.
Table 8.1 illustrates the difference between urban, rural and remote areas in average and maximum times taken to reach five services (supermarket, post office, petrol station, primary school and GP). In urban areas and small towns (settlements with more than 3,000 people) the drive times to each of five services are fairly uniform with the average drive time of five minutes or less to each of the services. In remote rural areas, however the average drive times to each of the services increase substantially: supermarket (22 min), post office (6 min), petrol station (14 min), primary school (8 min) and GP (10 min).
Table 8.1: Average and maximum drive times, by urban-rural classification, 2003
Minutes (average)
Average drive time | Supermarket | Post Office | Petrol Station | Primary School | GP |
|---|
Large Urban Areas | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
|---|
Other Urban Areas | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 |
|---|
Accessible Small Towns | 4 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
|---|
Remote Small Towns | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 |
|---|
Accessible Rural | 8 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 6 |
|---|
Remote Rural | 22 | 6 | 14 | 8 | 10 |
|---|
Scotland | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 4 |
|---|
Maximum drive time | Supermarket | Post Office | Petrol Station | Primary School | GP |
|---|
Large Urban Areas | 8 | 6 | 11 | 7 | 9 |
|---|
Other Urban Areas | 10 | 9 | 16 | 8 | 9 |
|---|
Accessible Small Towns | 16 | 10 | 26 | 15 | 16 |
|---|
Remote Small Towns | 13 | 10 | 23 | 6 | 10 |
|---|
Accessible Rural | 41 | 15 | 35 | 17 | 27 |
|---|
Remote Rural | 253 | 25 | 135 | 85 | 40 |
|---|
Scotland | 253 | 25 | 135 | 85 | 40 |
|---|
Source: Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics
Local Authorities have different shares of rural and urban areas, and this is reflected in drive times to services by local authority (Table 8.2). Predominantly rural local authorities such as Eilean Siar, Argyll & Bute, and the Shetland and Orkney Islands, as might be expected, have considerably longer average drive times than the Scotland average and predominantly urban authorities such as Glasgow City, City of Edinburgh and Aberdeen City. This is particularly pronounced for drive times to supermarkets and petrol stations, and less so for post offices and GPs.
Table 8.2: Average drive times (mins) to services, by Local Authority, 2003Minutes (average) | Supermarket | Post Office | Petrol Station | Primary School | GP |
|---|
Aberdeen City | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
|---|
Aberdeenshire | 8 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 6 |
|---|
Angus | 4 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 5 |
|---|
Argyll & Bute | 15 | 4 | 8 | 5 | 6 |
|---|
Clackmannanshire | 3 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 3 |
|---|
Dumfries & Galloway | 7 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 5 |
|---|
Dundee City | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
|---|
East Ayrshire | 4 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 4 |
|---|
East Dunbartonshire | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 |
|---|
East Lothian | 4 | 2 | 7 | 3 | 4 |
|---|
East Renfrewshire | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
|---|
Edinburgh, City of | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
|---|
Eilean Siar | 31 | 5 | 18 | 7 | 10 |
|---|
Falkirk | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
|---|
Fife | 4 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 4 |
|---|
Glasgow City | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
|---|
Highland | 12 | 5 | 8 | 5 | 7 |
|---|
Inverclyde | 3 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 |
|---|
Midlothian | 3 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
|---|
Moray | 7 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 5 |
|---|
North Ayrshire | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 |
|---|
North Lanarkshire | 4 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 3 |
|---|
Orkney Islands | 22 | 4 | 12 | 10 | 6 |
|---|
Perth & Kinross | 6 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 5 |
|---|
Renfrewshire | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 |
|---|
Scottish Borders | 7 | 4 | 12 | 4 | 6 |
|---|
Shetland Islands | 28 | 5 | 13 | 11 | 9 |
|---|
South Ayrshire | 4 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 4 |
|---|
South Lanarkshire | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 |
|---|
Stirling | 5 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 4 |
|---|
West Dunbartonshire | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 |
|---|
West Lothian | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 |
|---|
Scotland | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 4 |
|---|
Source: Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004
The majority of data zones classified as rural fall within the middle of the SIMD distribution. Two per cent of data zones in the 10% most deprived areas, and eight per cent in the 10% least deprived areas are classified as rural. Across the 6,505 data zones in the whole of Scotland, over 20 per cent are rural.
These rural and urban effects should be borne in mind when considering access in relation to deprived areas, and we can see that there is a strong relationship between rurality and access among the data zones for SIMD (Chart 8.3).
The peak in the number of rural areas coincides with the same SIMD deciles (six and seven) as the peak of average drive times to GPs, primary schools, petrol stations, post offices and supermarkets (Chart 8.4) and, therefore, these are the areas that are most deprived in terms of access. As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the access domain is not correlated with the other SIMD domains.
Chart 8.3: Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004 data zones classifed as rural
Percentage
Source: Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004
Chart 8.4: Average drive times to selected services
Minutes
Source: Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004
Chart 8.5: Access deprivation in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation
Percentage
Source: Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004
Convenience of services and access to a car
The Scottish Household Survey ( SHS) asks its respondents in households with and without cars to rate whether or not particular services are convenient or inconvenient to make use of during normal opening hours. It is important to consider that people's level of expectation may differ depending on where they live. It is often the case that rural residents have lower expectations than urban residents and, therefore, may report higher levels of convenience.
Of those without access to a car, respondents in the 15% most deprived areas were more likely than those in the rest of Scotland to say that public transport was convenient (89 per cent compared with 84 per cent), which reflects the mainly urban nature of these areas (Table 8.6). They were less likely, however, to say access to a bank was convenient (63 per cent in the 15% most deprived areas compared with 72 per cent in the rest of Scotland).
Across the whole of Scotland, the service least likely to be described as convenient was a hospital outpatients, department. Around half of people without a car and just under 60 per cent of those with a car found this convenient to get to, and there was no difference between the most deprived 15% and the rest of Scotland.
Table 8.6: Convenience of local services for adults in households with or without access to a car, 2003
Percentage of respondents saying that service was convenient
| Without access to a car | With access to a car |
|---|
15% Most Deprived | Rest of Scotland | Scotland | 15% Most Deprived | Rest of Scotland | Scotland |
|---|
Post Office | 87 | 88 | 87 | 91 | 88 | 89 |
|---|
Bank | 63 | 72 | 69 | 73 | 77 | 76 |
|---|
Doctor's Surgery | 75 | 75 | 75 | 83 | 82 | 82 |
|---|
Grocery/Food Shop | 87 | 87 | 87 | 93 | 91 | 91 |
|---|
Chemist/Pharmacist | 85 | 84 | 84 | 91 | 87 | 87 |
|---|
Hospital Outpatients Department | 50 | 48 | 49 | 59 | 59 | 59 |
|---|
Public Transport | 89 | 84 | 86 | 84 | 72 | 73 |
|---|
Source: Scottish Household Survey
Across Scotland as a whole, all services except public transport were more likely to be considered convenient by respondents living in households with a car. Data from the SHS show that people in the 15% most deprived areas are less likely to have a car available for private use. Thirty-eight per cent of those in the 15% most deprived areas had one or more cars available, compared with 72 per cent of people living in the rest of Scotland (Table 8.7). There is a strong correlation between level of deprivation and access to a car, with 60 per cent of people living in the 20% most deprived areas having no access to a car compared with 14 per cent in the 20% least deprived areas (Chart 8.8).
Table 8.7: Cars available for private use, 2003
Numbers of households, row percentages
| Number of cars | Sample size (=100%) |
|---|
None | One | Two | Three or more |
|---|
Most deprived 15% | 62 | 31 | 6 | 1 | 2,200 |
|---|
Rest of Scotland | 27 | 47 | 22 | 3 | 12,677 |
|---|
Scotland | 33 | 45 | 19 | 3 | 14,880 |
|---|
Source: Scottish Household Survey
Chart 8.8: Households with no car available for private use, 2003
Percentage
Source: Scottish Household Survey
Travel to place of work
Large distances between home and place of work can inconvenience people in terms of time and cost. According to responses from the Scottish Household Survey, in the 15% most deprived areas, employed people who do not work at home are more likely to live within five kilometres of their place of work (Chart 8.9). People living in the rest of Scotland are more likely than those in the 15% most deprived areas to travel more than 10km to work. In all areas, however, the most common distance to travel is between five and 10km (between 20 and 22 per cent of people in each area).
Chart 8.9: Distance to work, 2003
Percentage
Source: Scottish Household Survey
When travelling to work, people living in the most deprived 15% of areas are more likely to take the bus (23 per cent) or walk (18 per cent) than those living in the rest of Scotland (10 per cent bus, 12 per cent walking) (Chart 8.10). Conversely, those in the rest of Scotland are more likely to drive a car or van to work (62 per cent) than those in the 15% most deprived areas (41 per cent). This is likely to be due to a combination of factors. As we have seen, those in the 15% most deprived areas are more likely to live in an urban area, and travel shorter distances to work. They are also more likely to find public transport convenient and less likely to have access to a car for private use.
Chart 8.10: Usual method of travel to work, 2003
Percentage
Source: Scottish Household Survey
Despite shorter distances to work in the 15% most deprived areas, there is no difference in the commuting times of people in these areas and the rest of Scotland (Chart 8.11). As we have seen, in the most deprived areas, commuters are more likely to use public transport. This suggests that travel by public transport methods take relatively longer in the more urban deprived areas than travel by car over the same distance in rural areas. Across the whole of Scotland, most SHS respondents (just under a third) said that their commute to work took between 11 and 20 minutes. Very few people in all areas said that their commute took 60 minutes or more (five per cent in the 15% most deprived areas and seven per cent in the rest of Scotland).
Chart 8.11: Duration of journeys to work, 2003
Percentage
Source: Scottish Household Survey Travel Diary
Internet access
Access to the internet is an increasingly important method of gaining access to services and information. The number of households with internet access has a negative relationship with deprivation (Chart 8.12). In 2003, in the 20% most deprived areas, 23 per cent of households had internet access, compared with 60 per cent in the 20% least deprived areas.
Chart 8.12: Households with internet access, 2003
Percentage
Source: Scottish Household Survey
References
Scottish Household Survey http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/housing/shsar03-00.asp
Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics www.sns.gov.uk
Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation www.scotland.gov.uk/simd2004mapping
Contacts
Chapter author:
Tracey Stead
Office of the Chief Statistician
0131 244 0442
neighbourhood.statistics@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
Contributor:
Scottish Household Survey
0131 244 8420
shs@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
« Previous | Contents | Next »