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7 Travel to work - employed adults (16+)
7.1 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 described in this section do not apply in the case of any travel to work by 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, in fact, have part-time jobs.)
7.2 The interviewer asks about the location of the person's place of work. People who "work from home" (the term covers both those who work at home and those who work from home - e.g. a plumber, based at home, who each day goes wherever his services are required) are identified at this stage, and the interviewer does not enquire about their usual means of travel to work: that is asked only of those who do not work from home.
7.3 The reader is reminded that here, as throughout this bulletin, people are counted on the basis of where they live, not where they work. For example, the "travel to work" percentages for Edinburgh were calculated from the answers of the sample members who lived in Edinburgh - so do not indicate the usual means of commuting for all those who work in Edinburgh (including people from - e.g. - elsewhere in the Lothians and Fife).
7.4 Usual main method of travel to work: those who do not work from (or at) home
7.4.1 Table 19 shows that, in 2005/2006, 67% of commuters said that they usually travelled to work by car or van (60% as the driver and 7% as a passenger), 13% walked to work, 12% went by bus, 4% took a train (or the Glasgow Underground), 2% cycled and 2% used other modes of transport (such as a motorcycle or a taxi). The percentage who said that they drove to work was highest for "accessible" rural areas (76%) and "remote" rural areas (73%) and lowest for large urban areas and "remote" small towns (both 51-52%). The Council areas with the highest percentages driving to work were Aberdeenshire, East Renfrewshire, Shetland and West Lothian (all 70-72%); several others had 68-69%; Edinburgh and Glasgow had the lowest values (43-46%). The percentage who said that they were a car or van passenger was between 5% and 9% for every type of area. However, there were some large differences between Council areas, with the estimate ranging from 3-4% to 12-13% (though some figures are based on data for only 200-300 commuters, so could well be affected by sampling variability). Taking drivers and passengers together, people travelling by car or van accounted for 82% of commuters living in "accessible" rural areas but only 59% in large urban areas, and for 48% of Edinburgh commuters and 53% for Glasgow, compared with 77-80% for Aberdeenshire, Shetland, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian: this is illustrated in Chart H.
7.4.2 Overall, 13% said that they usually walked to work. This percentage was highest in "remote" small towns (26%) and lowest in "accessible" rural areas (7%). It ranged from 4% in East Renfrewshire to 20-25% in Argyll & Bute, Dumfries & Galloway, Dundee and Scottish Borders.
7.4.3 The bus was said to be the usual means of travel to work for 12% of commuters. The figures for different types of area ranged from 4% for "remote" rural areas to 18% in large urban areas. Orkney and Scottish Borders had the lowest percentages (2%), and Edinburgh (27%) and Glasgow and Midlothian (both 20%) had the highest.
7.4.4 Other modes of transport were used by small percentages of commuters. However, the percentage who usually travelled to work by rail was highest for East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Glasgow and Inverclyde (all 8-9%). The highest percentages for bicycle were 6% for Moray and 4% for Highland and South Ayrshire.
7.4.5 Table 20 compares the figures for the four two-year periods. There is very little difference in the results for Scotland as a whole, apart from a 4 %-point increase in the "car driver" percentage, and a 4 %-point fall in the "passenger" figure. Each type of area shows a broadly similar pattern, but the sizes of the changes differ - for example, the rise in the percentage who drive to work varies from 3 %-points for commuters living in large urban areas to 10 %-points for "remote" rural areas. Period to period fluctuations of a couple of percentage points in some of the figures for commuters living in small towns and rural areas may be due to sampling variability - this is particularly likely in the case of the figures for "remote" small towns, which are based on interviews with only about 600 or so people in each two-year period. Similar comments apply in the case of the figures for the RTP areas: all show an increase in the percentage driving to work, and a fall in the percentage who get a lift. Again, some of their apparent changes could be due to sampling variability, since many of the figures for each two-year period are based on interviews with, at most, only a thousand or so commuters, and so could be subject to sampling errors of several percentage points.
7.5 Working from (or at) home
7.5.1 The left-hand part of Table 21 shows that, in 2005/2006, 11% of employed adults said that they worked from (or at) home. There were particularly high percentages in "remote" rural areas (26%) and in Orkney (26%) and Highland (20%) - see Chart I. Among the RTPs, Highlands & Islands and South-West had the highest figures (both 18%).
7.6 Car or van commuters - could they use public transport?
7.6.1 The interviewer asks people who say that they usually travel to work by car or van whether they could use public transport. The right-hand side of Table 21 shows that 43% of them said that they could use public transport to travel to work, and 55% said that they could not (a few said that they did not know). The percentage who could use public transport was particularly high for large urban areas (54%), and for Dundee, East Dunbartonshire, Edinburgh, Glasgow and West Dunbartonshire (all 55-59%) - see Chart I. South-East (47%) was the RTP with the highest figure. The percentage who could not use public transport was particularly high for "remote" rural areas (80%), Orkney (88%) and Dumfries & Galloway and Shetland and their corresponding RTPs (77-78%).
7.7 Car or van drivers - other purposes of their journeys to work
7.7.1 People who drive a car or van to work are asked about any other purposes of their journeys to work. Table 22 shows the results. 74% said that their journeys had no other purpose, 10% also took children to school, 5% bought newspapers, sandwiches or milk for work, 5% went shopping or other errands, 3% took a spouse/partner to work/education, 4% took friends or family to work/education, and 3% mentioned other purposes (such as taking a child to a nursery, childminder or other childcare; car sharing, carpool or picking up colleagues; and leisure activities or visiting people).
7.7.2 The percentage saying that their journeys had no other purpose hardly varied with the type of area (the range was only from 72-76%). There appears to be more marked variation between Council areas, but the figures concerned could be subject to large sampling errors because some of them are based on interviews with only a hundred or so people who drive to work. Taking children to school was highest (13%) in large urban areas, and going shopping or other errands was highest (11%) in "remote" rural areas - as these figures are based on larger samples, sampling errors should be smaller. There appeared to be marked differences between Council areas for some purposes, but again the sample sizes mean that some of the figures could be subject to large sampling errors. Among the RTPs, the percentage taking children to school was highest in Strathclyde (12%), and Highlands & Islands had the highest percentages going shopping or other errands (13%) and buying newspapers/sandwiches or milk for work (10%).
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