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3. Cars, buses and bicycles available to households
3.1 Availability of cars
3.1.1 The interviewer asks the Highest Income Householder (or his/her spouse or partner) about any cars normally available for private use by members of the household. Table 1 shows the results for 2006. The first row of the table shows that 32% of households did not have a car available for private use, 44% had one car, 20% had two cars, and 4% had three or more cars - so, just over two-thirds (68%) of households had one or more cars.
3.1.2 Table 1 shows that the availability of cars differed greatly between types of household (for example, only 32% of single pensioner households had one or more cars, compared with 90% of large family households) and between the categories of the socio-economic classification (households are counted on the basis of the Highest Income Householder - see section A.7): for example, only 60% of households where the highest income earner is in a "semi-routine" occupation had a car, compared with 94% when the highest income householder is in a "higher managerial or professional" occupation. 53% of "higher managerial and professional" households had two or more cars. There was also considerable variation with annual net household income: only 38% of households with a net income of up to £10,000 per year had at least one car, compared with 99% of "over £40,000" households. 73% of the households with an annual net income of over £40,000 had two or more cars. Chart A shows how car availability rises as household income increases.
3.1.3 The next part of Table 1 shows how the position varies between different types of area. 42% of households in the most deprived 20% of the areas within Scotland (as identified by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation) had one or more cars, compared to 85% in the least deprived 20% of areas. (The SIMD uses information about average incomes, dependency on benefits, health, education, access to services, etc - further details are given in section A.11.) There are differences between "urban" and "rural" areas, using a six-way classification that was developed for the analysis of the SHS results. In this classification:
- a " small town" has a population between 3,000 and 9,999 (inclusive);
- an area is described as " accessible" if it is within 30 minutes drive of a settlement with a population of 10,000 or more, otherwise it is described as " remote"; and
- a " large urban area" is a settlement with a population of 125,000 or more.
Further details are given in section A.12. 57% of households in large urban areas had cars compared with 85-87% in rural areas. The remainder of the table shows that there is variation with property type and tenure.
3.1.4 Table A shows the increases over the years in the percentages of households having access to one or more cars (from 62.9% in 1999 to 67.9% in 2006) and two or more cars (from 17.8% in 1999 to 24.1% in 2006). As each of these figures has "95% confidence limits" of about +/- 0.7-0.9 percentage-points, these rises are clearly larger than could be due to sampling variability alone. Chart B illustrates the increases.
Chart C: Households' transport facilities
Chart D: People (aged 17+) with full driving licences, and who drive every day
3.2 The accessibility and frequency of bus services
3.2.1 The SHS interviewer asks how long it would take him/her to walk to the nearest bus stop (or place where one can get on a bus). Table 1 shows that, in 2006, 85% of all households were said to be up to 6 minutes walk away from a bus stop. The interviewer also asks about the frequency of service at the nearest bus stop (or place that one could get on a bus). Overall, 23% of householders said that there were at least five buses per hour, and 21% of households were within a 6 minute walk of a bus stop with at least five buses per hour. There were considerable differences between urban and rural areas. 89-90% of households in urban areas were said to be within a 6 minute walk of a bus stop compared to 58% of households in "remote" rural areas. The frequency of the service was said to be better in large urban areas, with 44% of households saying there were at least five buses per hour, in contrast to 1% or less of those in rural areas and "remote" small towns.
3.2.2 Table B shows that the percentage of households that were said to be within a 6 minute walk of a bus stop varies slightly over the years, but no real trend can be seen. However, the frequency of services seems to have improved since the survey started, as 22.7% of households in 2006 said there were at least five buses every hour, compared with only 19.7% of households in 1999 (and, over the same period, there was a rise in the percentage who said that they did not know the frequency of service at the nearest bus stop). As each of these figures has "95% confidence limits" of about +/- 0.8 percentage-points, the rise between 1999 and 2006 is larger than could be due to sampling variability alone - but so is the fall between the figures for 2005 (24.9%) and 2006 (22.7%).
3.2.3 More detailed tables on the accessibility and frequency of bus services appear in the "Bus and Coach Statistics" series of bulletins, along with other types of figures on buses and coaches.
3.3 Bicycles which can be used by adults
3.3.1 The interviewer asks whether the household has any bicycles which can be used by adults. Table 1 shows that, in 2006, 35% of households had one or more bicycles. This percentage varied greatly with the type of the household, from 6% for single pensioner households to 67% for large family households (see Chart C) and with annual net household income (from 15% of households with up to £10,000 per year to 72% of those with over £40,000). For other classifications, it was highest for "higher managerial and professional" households (60%), households in the least deprived 20% of areas (47%), rural areas (46-47%), and detached houses (54%).
3.3.2 Table B shows that there have been small changes to the proportion of households with access to one or more bicycles between 2000 and 2006, but no clear trends over that period (the value for 1999 appears unusually low). As each of the figures has "95% confidence limits" of about +/- 0.9 percentage-points, the fluctuations could well be due to sampling variability.
Chart E: Possession of full driving licence and frequency of driving by annual net household income
Chart F: Possession of full driving licence by sex and year
Chart G: Frequency of driving by year
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