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5. Walking and cycling by adults(Tables 7 to 9; Chart C)
5.1 The interviewer asks the randomly-chosen adult on how many of the previous seven days did he/she make a trip of more than a quarter of a mile by foot (a) to go somewhere such as work, shopping or to see friends ( i.e. used walking as a means of transport); and (b) just for the pleasure of walking, or to keep fit or walk a dog. A similar question is asked about cycling.
5.2 Walking
5.2.1 The left-hand side of Table 7 shows that, in 2003/2004, 46% of adults said that, in the previous seven days, they had not made a trip of more than a quarter of a mile by foot to go somewhere, 17% answered that they had made such a trip on 1-2 days, 21% reported that they had done so on 3-5 days, and 15% responded that they had done so on 6-7 days. Therefore, 54% claimed to have made a trip of more than a quarter of a mile by foot to go somewhere in the previous seven days. Chart C shows that the percentage who said that they had walked to go somewhere was highest (59%) for adults in large urban areas and lowest for those in rural areas (35-41%). Edinburgh (70%) and Falkirk and North Ayrshire (both 60-62%) had the highest percentages; Eilean Siar (17%) and Aberdeenshire (37%) had the lowest. The percentage of adults who said that they had walked to go somewhere on 6 or 7 of the previous seven days was highest for Edinburgh, Moray, Perth & Kinross and Scottish Borders (all 23-25%), and lowest for Eilean Siar, North Lanarkshire, Orkney and West Lothian (all 5-8%).
5.2.2 The right-hand side of Table 7 provides information about walking for pleasure or to keep fit (including walking a dog). In 2003/2004, 56% of adults said that they had not done so in the past seven days, 17% had done so on 1-2 days, 13% had done so on 3-5 days and 14% had done so on 6-7 days. Therefore, 44% of adults said that they had made a trip of more than a quarter of a mile by foot for pleasure or to keep fit in the previous seven days. Chart C shows that this percentage was highest in rural areas and "remote" small towns (52-56%) and lowest in large urban areas (36%). Moray (70%) and Argyll & Bute, Perth & Kinross and South Ayrshire (all 58%) had the highest percentages; Aberdeen, Glasgow, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire and South Lanarkshire (all 31-35%) had the lowest. The percentage who had walked for pleasure or to keep fit on 6 or 7 of the previous seven days was highest in Moray (31%) and Scottish Borders (20%) and lowest in Aberdeen, Dundee, Glasgow and Orkney (all 9%).
5.2.3 Table 8 compares the figures for the three two-year periods. There were no large changes in the overall percentages for Scotland as a whole, or for any of the types of areas across Scotland: in many cases, the figures for the three two-year periods are all within a couple of percentage points of each other, and in only a few cases (often for the areas with the smaller sample numbers) did they differ by more than four percentage points. When account is taken of the underlying sample sizes, some of these apparent changes will not be "significant" statistically. However, while there was little variation in the figures for adults in large urban areas, there appeared to be a definite rise (from 38% to 45%) in the percentage of adults in other urban areas who said that they had walked for pleasure or to keep fit: as the figure for each two-year period is based on a sample of over 8,000 adults (and therefore has a "95% confidence interval" of +/- 1.3 %-points), the scale of the increase is such that it is most unlikely to be due to sampling variability.
5.2.4 There was only one RTP area for which there was a change of more than five percentage points between 1999/2000 and 2003/2004 in the percentage of adults who said that they had walked to go somewhere: South West (up from 43% to 49%, having been 54% in 2001/2002). There were also changes of more than five percentage points in the percentages of adults who said that they had walked for pleasure or to keep fit in both Highlands & Islands (up from 52% to 58%), Shetland (up from 40% to 54%) and South West (up from 47% to 54%). The size of some of these changes is such that it appears unlikely that they are due solely to sampling variability - in other words, it seems unlikely that (if there were no difference between the underlying position in the two periods) such large changes could have arisen purely by chance. However, sampling variability could have contributed to the apparent size of the changes - and it must be remembered that, in cases like this, when there are many comparisons that one can make, sampling variability may cause a few apparently "statistically significant" differences to arise purely by chance.
5.3 Cycling
5.3.1 Table 9 shows the reported frequencies of cycling. In 2003/2004, only 3% of adults said that they had cycled as a means of transport in the previous seven days. There was little variation with the type of area. The percentages for Council areas ranged between 0% (to the nearest whole percent) and 6%. One should not infer too much from the apparent differences between areas, as they are small and the figures are based (in some cases) on only a few hundred sample cases, and therefore could well be subject to sampling errors of a couple of percentage points. However, as the Edinburgh figure of 5% is based on answers from over 2,300 adults, one can be fairly confident that the level for that Council area is higher than the overall figure of 3%.
5.3.2 In 2003/2004, 4% of adults said that they had cycled for pleasure or to keep fit in the previous seven days. There was a little more variation by type of area (from 3% for large urban areas to 6% for "remote" small towns); the percentages for Council areas ranged between 1% and 10%. Again, one should not infer too much from the figures for many of the areas, because they are based on small samples, but the Highland figure of 7% (which is based on more than 1,000 interviews) and the Moray value of 10% (based on almost 600 interviews) are both "statistically significantly" higher than the overall level of 4%.
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