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11. Place of work, and travel to work: employed adults (16+)
11.1 The interviewer puts a series of questions about travel to work to all those randomly-chosen adults whose current situation was described as "self-employed", "employed full-time" or "employed part-time". Therefore, the results do not apply in the case of people whose current situation was described in some other way (for example, these questions were not asked of people who were described as "in full-time education", some of whom may have part-time jobs).
11.2 Place of work
11.2.1 The results given here were produced from data for two years (2005 and 2006) combined, in order to provide a more reliable basis for analysis. Table 20 shows that, overall, 11.0% of employed adults worked at or from home (this category includes, for example, a plumber whose base is at home, and who each day goes to wherever his/her services are required), 0.8% work at sea or offshore, 0.3% work outwith Scotland, and 88% are employed elsewhere (which is likely to be a normal workplace, although some of them may spend some of their working hours at home).
11.2.2 A higher proportion of men than women have each of the less common working patterns (14.3% of men work at or from home, 1.6% work at sea or offshore, and 0.5% outwith Scotland - compared with 7.7% of women who work at or from home, and hardly any who work at sea or offshore or outwith Scotland). The proportion of people working at or from home increases with age, from 5.3% of 16-19 year olds, to 21.1% of those aged 60 and above. Three-fifths of self-employed people work at or from home. 26% of employed people in "remote" rural areas work at or from home, compared to 8-9% in urban areas.
11.2.3 Table L shows that the percentage of employed adults who work at or from home has risen in most years since the survey started, from 7.5% in 1999 to 10.9% in 2006. As each year's figure has "95% confidence limits" of about +/- 0.7-0.8 percentage-points, the rise is more than would be thought due to sampling variability.
Chart L: Main means of travel to work by distance between home and work
11.3 Usual means of travel to work: those who do not work from (or at) home
11.3.1 The tables in this section relate to employed adults who do not work at or from home. The interviewer asks the person about his/her usual means of travel to work. (The usual main method was recorded if the method varied, or if the journey involved more than one method.) Table 21 shows that, in 2006, 67% of these employed adults said that they usually travelled to work by car or van (60% as a driver and 7% as a passenger), 14% walked to work, 12% went by bus, 3% took a train (including the Glasgow Subway), 2% cycled and 2% used other modes of transport (such as a motorcycle or a taxi). The percentage who drove to work was higher for men (65%) than women (56%); a greater percentage of women than men walked (17% against 10%) or went by bus (13% against 10%).
11.3.2 A car or van was the usual means of travel to work of the majority in every age-group apart from 16-19 year olds. 80% of the self-employed, and 69% of those employed full-time, travelled by car or van, but only 60% of those employed part-time did so (21% of those employed part-time walked to work). A car or van was used by the majority in every social class. 19-24% of those in routine or semi-routine occupations walked to work.
11.3.3 When the figures are analysed by the annual net income (of the household rather than the person), the proportion who walked to work was highest (28%) for those from households with an annual net income of up to £10,000, and tended to fall as income rose. The percentage who went to work by bus tended to fall, and the percentage who travelled by car or van tended to increase, as income rose - for example, commuting by car rose with the annual net income of the household, from 45% for commuters from "up to £10,000" households to 80% for those from "over £40,000" households. This is shown in Chart K.
11.3.4 There are differences between types of area. 81% of commuters living in "accessible" rural areas usually travelled by car, compared with 58-60% of those living in large urban areas and "remote" small towns. 25% of workers living in "remote" small towns usually walked to work, and 18% of those living in large urban areas took the bus. 36% of commuters from households with no private cars available walked to work, and 37% took the bus. 65% of commuters from households with one car available travelled by car to work, as did 86% of those from households with more than one car.
11.3.5 The interviewer asks the random adults for their work postcodes, from which the straight-line distances "as the crow files" between home and work are estimated. (See section A.9 for more details on how the distance was estimated). Table 21 and Chart L show that 63% of commuters who live under 1 km from work walk to work, and that this percentage falls rapidly as the distance increases. 18-22% of adults living from 2 km to less than 5 km away from work take the bus to work. About four-fifths of adults who work 10+ km from home go by car or van, whereas only 31% of adults who live under 1 km from work do so. (The results may be affected by the small sample numbers for the longer distance categories: the small percentages apparently walking or cycling very long distances to work may be due to errors in the recorded information or in the estimation process, or to people staying away from home during their working week - see section A.9).
11.3.6 Table M shows the trends since the survey started. Some of the apparent year-to-year changes may be due to sampling variability - for example, the percentage commuting by car/van has "95% confidence limits" of +/- about 1.5 percentage-points, so its apparent changes could be due to sampling variability. However, the increase in driving to work (from 54.7% in 1999 to 60.2%) and the fall in getting a lift (from 11.8% to 7.0%) are both much greater than can be regarded as likely to be due to sampling variability. There has been little change in the percentages using the other modes, which have remained around 13% (walking), 12% (bus), 3% (rail) and 2% (bicycle), with minor year-to-year fluctuations due to sampling variability.
Chart M: Travel to school (data for four years)
11.4 Usual method of travel to work a year ago and reasons for change
11.4.1 The interviewer asked those who had specified a usual method of travel to work whether they were in employment a year ago, and, if so, what was their main method of travel to work a year ago. Because the latter question applies only to a small proportion of the sample, the results given here were produced from data for two years (2005 and 2006) combined, in order to provide a more reliable basis for analysis. Table 22 shows that most people use the same method of travel to work as a year previously: for example, 87% of those who walked to work a year ago were still doing so, as were 97% of those who travelled by car or van. 7% of those who used to walk to work were now travelling by car, as were 11% of those who used to travel by bus. Table 23 shows that, overall, 91.5% of employed adults, not working from home, who were in employment a year ago, were using the same mode of travel to work as a year ago - so only 8.5% had changed their mode.
11.4.2 Those who had changed their usual method of travel to work were then asked why. More than one reason could be provided. Table 23 shows that the main reasons identified were "changed job" (given by 3.0% of all employed adults, not working from home, who were in employment a year ago - i.e. by over a third of the 8.5% who had changed their mode of travel to work), "moved home" (1.8% - i.e. over a fifth of those who had changed), "fresh air / exercise" (0.8%), "employer relocated" (0.5%) and "bought a car" (0.5%). Other reasons were recorded, but the percentages for each of them were smaller. Some people gave other reasons which were not identified, and no reasons were recorded in some cases.
11.4.3 The main reasons for changing the mode of travel to work given did not differ greatly, depending upon the mode used a year ago. Of those who walked to work a year ago, 12.9% no longer did so. 5.6% ( i.e. over two-fifths of those who had changed) gave the reason "changed job", 4.0% ( i.e. almost a third of those who had changed) said "moved home", and 1.3% said "employer relocated". In the case of those who commuted by bus or rail, 18.8% no longer did so. 7.6% (two-fifths of those who had changed) said this was because they had "changed job", 4.2% (over a fifth) said "moved home", 2.2% cited "fresh air/exercise", 1.5% said "bought car" and 1.1% "passed driving test". "Changed job" and "moved home" were by far the reasons most often given by people who used to travel to work by car, or using other modes.
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