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5 Walking and cycling
- Twelve per cent of respondents had travelled to work on foot in 2007 and 2 per cent travelled by bicycle.
- The majority of school children had walked to school in 2007 and 1 per cent had cycled.
- The frequency of driving affected the percentage of transport walking trips recorded in the past seven days but it had little significant affect on the percentage of pleasure walking trips.
- Households with the highest household income were significantly more likely to have access to a bicycle than those on the lowest household income.
- Younger respondents were more likely to have made a cycling trip than older respondents.
Travel to Work
5.1 Twelve per cent of respondents had travelled to work on foot in 2007 and 2 per cent travelled by bicycle. Although the percentage walking has dropped from the high of 2006, this figure is variable and is approximately constant around 13 per cent. [ Table 12].
Travel to School
5.2 The majority of school children had walked to school in 2007 (53 per cent) and 1 per cent had cycled. Due to the small sample sizes these figures are subject to a large degree of year-on-year variations. [ Table 13].
Walking and cycling as a mode of transport
5.3 Almost fifty per cent of respondents had not walked as a means of transport in the previous seven days in 2007, relatively unchanging since 1999. [ Table 9]. Note: Only journeys longer than _ of a mile are collected in the independent walking and cycling questions. This figure is higher than the travel to work question (paragraph 5.1) and will include journeys where walking and cycling is a stage of the journey but not the longest distance mode.
5.4 Three per cent of respondents had made a cycling related transport journey in the previous seven days, a stable trend since 1999.
Pleasure
5.5 In 2007 47 per cent of respondents had walked for pleasure in the past seven days, an increase of 7 percentage points since 1999. Four per cent of respondents had cycled for pleasure in the past seven days.
Bicycle access
5.6 Over one third of respondents had access to a bicycle in 2007, a survey high. [ Table 1]. The percentage of households with access to a bicycle varied with household type (Figure 7), with family households the most likely to have access to a bicycle (61 - 66 per cent) and single pensioners the least likely to have access to a bicycle (8 per cent). [ Table 15].
Figure 7: Household transport facilities, 2007
5.7 Households with the highest household income were significantly more likely to have access to a bicycle than those on the lowest household incomes (69 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively). This is most likely due to the lower levels of disposable income in households with a lower income.
5.8 A similar effect is seen with deprivation: households in the more deprived areas are less likely to have access to a bicycle than households in less deprived areas. Rural areas were most likely to have access to a bicycle than non-rural areas (49 - 50 per cent) and large urban areas were the least likely to have access to a bicycle (28 per cent).
Age/gender
5.9 There was no difference between the genders when considering walking journeys. Older people were less likely to make walking journeys than younger respondents and respondents in further or higher education and those unemployed were the sub-groups most likely to make transport related walking trips. [ Table 24].
5.10 Younger respondents were more likely to have made a cycling trip than older respondents; however the results are based on a small sample and are more affected by sample variation than walking journeys. [ Table 25].
Income, deprivation and urban/rural
5.11 Income had little effect on transport related walking journeys but households on high-incomes were more likely to make pleasure related walking journeys in 2007.
5.12 Respondents in remote rural areas were the least likely to have made transport related walking trips in the past seven days compared to those in other urban areas (33 per cent and 51 per cent, respectively) and the most likely to have made pleasure trips than large urban areas (57 per cent and 42 per cent, respectively). This may be due to the lower level of provisions in rural areas and increased open spaces in which to enjoy leisure pursuits.
5.13 Unsurprisingly, the frequency of driving affected the percentage of transport walking trips recorded in the past seven days but it had little significant affect on the percentage of pleasure walking trips.
5.14 There was little significant difference with household income, deprivation or urban/rural classification with cycling.
GB comparisons
5.15 Although no direct comparison can be drawn between SHS Scotland results and NTS07 GB results due to a difference in question methodology ( NTS07 is only asked of journeys over 20 minutes or more) the results are broadly consistent (although slightly higher), 58 per cent of GB respondents had made a walking journey and 9 per cent had made a cycling journey in the past week.
5.16 A similar trend with bicycle access and income is seen at GB level but the range of access is not as extreme as in the SHS (33 per cent for lowest income - 53 per cent for highest income level, NTS07).
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