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1.1 This bulletin provides information, collected by the Scottish Household Survey (SHS) in 1999 and 2000, about the transport facilities available to private households, and about some travel by household members, for parts of Scotland. Statistics are provided for each Council area, and for each category of an urban/rural classification which was developed for use in analysing the results of the SHS. The topics covered include the accessibility and frequency of bus services; people's views on the convenience of public transport; the availability for private use of motor vehicles, cars and company cars; people's possession of driving licences and their frequency of driving; people's frequency of walking and cycling; the usual method of travel to work; whether people work from home; whether car commuters could use public transport; where people who drive to work park; and travel to school.
1.2 The SHS collects a wide range of information. Some questions are asked about the household as a whole, and all the people in it; some relate only to one randomly-chosen adult (aged 16+) member of the household; and some are asked only about one randomly-chosen schoolchild member of the household (if there is one). Some questions are answered on behalf of the household by the Highest Income Householder (please see the "Notes and Definitions") or his/her spouse/partner; others are answered by the randomly-chosen adult on behalf of him/herself. The results are weighted to take account of differences in selection probabilities. The statistics given here were extracted from a copy of the data used for Scotland's People volume 3 (the SHS Annual Report for 1999/2000, published in October 2001), so will not take account of subsequent revisions to the SHS database.
1.3 As with all such surveys, sampling variability and non-response bias may affect the results. It is particularly important to keep this in mind when looking at the results for individual Council areas, because some of them may be affected by quite large percentage sampling errors. In general, the smaller the sample from which an estimate has been produced, the greater the likelihood that the estimate could be misleading. As an example, Table 13 provides information about travel to school. In some cases, the figure for a Council area is based on data for only a hundred or so school pupils, each of whom therefore represents about 1% of the total. So, which particular households were selected for inclusion in the sample could make a significant difference to the results, and they are therefore subject to considerable potential sampling variability. For example, the estimate of the percentage of pupils in that Council area who cycle to school would have been two or three percentage points higher had the SHS sample included, purely by chance, just two or three more children who cycled to school. In a "low population density" Council area, the "clustering" of the sample increases the potential sampling variability: for example, the estimated percentage who walk to school could be over-estimated greatly if, by chance, disproportionately many of the "rural" sample clusters chosen were in villages with schools, and disproportionately few were in places far from schools. Hence, an estimate that (say) 50% walk to school, produced from a sample of 100 or so school pupil households, may only indicate that the true value for the area is likely to be between 40% and 60%. Section 10 provides more information on the possible scale of sampling errors.
1.4 There are other reasons why the SHS results may provide only broad indications for some Council areas. First, the non-response rate is particularly high in some Council areas. Should the characteristics of non-respondents differ markedly from those of the people in the survey, the results could be biased. Unfortunately, by its nature, the scale of any non-response bias is very difficult to quantify, as the survey does not collect information about the characteristics of non-respondents. Second, as it is a survey of private households, the SHS does not cover some sections of the population - for example, it does not collect information about many students, such as those who live in halls of residence (see section B.2.3 of the background information about the survey).
1.5 It follows that figures for individual Council areas should be used cautiously, particularly those based on small samples. When comparing the figures for different Council areas, it is particularly important to note that small differences may well be the result of sampling variability rather than indicating any real difference between Council areas. Paragraph 10.7 provides guidance on comparing different values from the survey. For ease of reading, the commentary generally gives the survey's estimates without continually reminding you that they may be subject to errors of several percentage points.
2.1 In 1999/2000, about 5% of householders said that they had no bus service or were at least 14 minutes walk away from the nearest bus stop (or place where one could get on a bus). However, over 30% of householders in "remote" rural areas, and about 15% of those in "accessible" rural areas, said that they had no bus service or were at least 14 minutes walk away from one. Of the Council areas, Orkney (37%) and Aberdeenshire, Highland and Shetland (17-21%) had the highest percentages. (Section 3.1)
2.2 About a fifth of householders did not know the frequency of their nearest bus service, with the percentage being highest in Angus, Dumfries & Galloway and Stirling (29-33%) and lowest in Dundee, Edinburgh and Inverclyde (8-11%). (Section 3.2)
2.3 Public transport was described as "very convenient" by 54% of adults in large urban areas, but by only 14% of those living in "remote" rural areas: there, 35% said that it was "very inconvenient", and a further 19% felt that it was "fairly inconvenient". Among the Council areas, the "very inconvenient" percentage was highest for Orkney (44%) and Angus, Highland and Shetland (20-23%). (Section 3.4)
2.4 In 1999/2000, almost two-thirds of households had one or more motor vehicles available for private use. The percentage was highest in rural areas (81%) and lowest in large urban areas (53%). In Aberdeenshire, East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire, 81-83% of households had a motor vehicle, compared with 41% in Glasgow and 51-54% in Dundee and Renfrewshire. (Section 4.1)
2.5 About 18% of households had two or more cars, rising to around 32% in "accessible" rural areas. The Council areas with the highest percentages were East Renfrewshire (about 36%) and Aberdeenshire, East Dunbartonshire and Stirling (around 31-32%). (Section 4.2)
2.6 7% of households had one or more company vehicles available for private use. The percentage was highest in East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire (15%) and Perth & Kinross and Stirling (12%). (Section 4.3)
2.7 About a third of households had one or more bicycles that adults could use. The percentage with bicycles ranged from 17-19% for households in Dundee and Glasgow to 50-52% for Aberdeenshire, Moray and Orkney. (Section 4.4).
2.8 In 1999/2000, nearly two-thirds of people aged 17 or over were said to have a full driving licence. The percentage was lowest in large urban areas (57%) and highest in rural areas (78%), and ranged from 47% in Glasgow and 54% in Dundee to 78% in Orkney and 80% in Aberdeenshire. (Section 5.2)
2.9 Across Scotland, 45% of people aged 17 or over were said to drive every day: 57% of those in "accessible" rural areas, and 54% of those in "remote" rural areas, compared with only 37% of those in large urban areas. The figure ranged from 29% in Glasgow and 35% in Dundee to 57-59% in Aberdeenshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire and Shetland. (Section 5.3)
2.10 In 1999/2000, 53% of adults said that they had made a trip of more than a quarter of a mile by foot to go somewhere in the previous seven days, but only 36-38% of those in rural areas had done so. Among the Council areas, the percentage was highest in Aberdeen, East Dunbartonshire and Edinburgh (61-65%) and lowest in Aberdeenshire, Eilean Siar and Orkney (36-40%). However, 50-54% of adults in rural areas said that they had walked for pleasure or to keep fit in the seven days before the interview, compared with the overall figure of 41%. The figures ranged from 26% in North Lanarkshire and 31% in Glasgow to 55-57% in Moray and Scottish Borders and 62% in Argyll & Bute. (Section 6.2)
2.11 Two-thirds of commuters said that they usually travelled to work by car or van (56% as the driver, 11% as a passenger), 14% walked, 12% went by bus, 3% used a train and 2% cycled. The percentage who drove to their place of work was highest for "accessible" rural areas (68%) and "remote" rural areas (63%), and lowest for "remote" small towns (46%). The percentage who travelled to work by car or van was lowest for those who lived in Edinburgh and Glasgow (52-55%) and highest for people in East Renfrewshire, Fife and South Ayrshire (77-79%). (Section 7.4)
2.12 A quarter of commuters living in "remote" small towns walked to work. Argyll & Bute, Dumfries & Galloway and Orkney had the highest percentages (21-23%). The bus was the usual means of travel to work for 19% of those living in large urban area, with the highest percentages being in Edinburgh (25%) and Glasgow and Midlothian (20-21%). (Section 7.4)
2.13 About 8% of employed adults worked at or from home. The percentage was highest in "remote" rural areas (21%), and in the Council areas of Argyll & Bute, Dumfries & Galloway and Eilean Siar (17%). (Section 7.5).
2.14 In 1999/2000, 45% of those who usually travelled to work by car or van said that they could use public transport. The percentage was highest for those living in large urban areas (60%) and for Aberdeen, Glasgow and West Dunbartonshire (63-66%). However, 86% of car/van commuters living in "remote" rural areas said that they could not use public transport; including 93% of such people in Orkney and 82-83% of those in Dumfries & Galloway and Moray. (Section 7.6)
2.15 Walking was reported to be the usual method of travel to school for 55% of pupils, 23% went by bus, 19% travelled in a car or van, and only 1% cycled. About three-fifths of pupils in towns and cities walked to school, compared with only 37% of those in "accessible" rural areas and 25% of those in "remote" rural areas. The percentage travelling by bus was 15-19% in towns and cities, 40% in "accessible" rural areas and 59% in "remote" rural areas. There was much less variation in the use of the car, the figures for the different types of area all being between 14% and 22%. (Section 8)
3.1 Whether there was a bus service, and the walking time to the nearest bus stop
3.1.1 The SHS interviewer asks the householder how long it would take the interviewer to walk to the nearest bus stop (or place where one could get on a bus). Table 1 shows the results. (The groupings shown in the table headings are used to avoid uncertainty about how answers like "around 5 minutes" are counted.) The first row of the table gives the figures for Scotland as a whole. In 1999/2000, over half of all households (54%) were said to be up to 3 minutes walk away from the nearest bus stop, and just under a third of households (31%) were 4-6 minutes walk away from a bus stop. 10% of householders reported a 7-13 minutes walk, and only 4% said that the interviewer would have to walk for 14 minutes or longer. Just 1% of householders did not know how long it would take to walk to the nearest bus stop, and another 1% said that there was no bus service. The number in italics at the right-hand end of the first row show that these results were produced from the answers given by 30,227 householders.
3.1.2 The upper part of Table 1 shows whether there was a bus service and, if so, how the walking time to the nearest bus stop differ greatly 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 10,000, and an area is described as "accessible" if it is within 30 minutes' drive of a settlement with a population of over 10,000 (otherwise it is described as "remote"). A "large urban area" is a settlement with a population of over 125,000. More details of the classification are given in Section 9. In 1999/2000, 13% of householders in "remote" rural areas said that they had no bus service, as did 4% of those in "accessible" rural area. A further 18% of householders in "remote" rural areas, and 11% of those in "accessible" rural areas, said that it would take at least 14 minutes to walk to the nearest bus stop (or place where one could get on a bus). The percentage within 3 minutes walk of a bus service was only 34% for households in "remote" rural areas, and 44% for those in "accessible" rural areas, compared with between 52% and 60% of those in other areas.
3.1.3 Chart A and the lower part of Table 1 show, for each Council area, whether there was a bus service and, if so, information about the walking time. It will be seen that, in 1999/2000, the percentage of householders who said that they did not have a bus service was highest in Orkney (20%) followed by Aberdeenshire, Highland and Shetland (6-8%). These areas also had the highest percentages of householders who said that it would take at least 14 minutes to walk to the nearest bus stop (or place where one could get on a bus): Orkney (17%), Aberdeenshire, Highland and Shetland (11-13%). Only 23% of Orkney householders, and 43%-48% of those in Aberdeenshire, Highland and Shetland, said that that it would take no more than 3 minutes to walk to the nearest bus stop. In contrast, 61-65% of householders in Aberdeen, Dundee, Eilean Siar, Falkirk, Fife, Inverclyde and West Dunbartonshire said that they were within 3 minutes' walk of the nearest bus service.
3.2 Frequency of bus services
3.2.1 Table 2 analyses the frequency of bus services, as reported by householders (the interviewer does not try to check the householders' answers). In 1999/2000, 19% of householders did not know how often one could get a bus from the nearest stop during the day (this figure does not include those who said that they did not have a bus service). This percentage was highest for households in "remote" small towns (30%): all the other types of area had figures in the range 16-22%. Chart B shows that the Council areas which had the highest percentages of householders who said that they did not know the frequency of the bus service were Angus, Dumfries & Galloway and Stirling (29-33%). In contrast, only 8% of householders in Edinburgh said that they did not know the frequency of their nearest bus service, and in Dundee and Inverclyde only 10-11% of householders answered "don't know".
3.2.2 The interviewer asked about the frequency of service at the nearest bus stop (or place one could get on a bus). In cases where the householder said that the frequency of service varied, the interviewer asked for the week-day off-peak frequency. Overall, 20% of householders said that there was at least one bus every 13 minutes, 27% thought that there was one every 14-26 minutes, 27% answered that there was a bus every 27-63 minutes, and 5% indicated that the interval between buses was 64 minutes or longer (this last category does not include those householders who said that they did not have a bus service). The difference between urban and rural areas was very clear: 42% of householders in "remote" rural areas said that there was one bus every 64 minutes or more, as did 16% of those in "accessible" rural areas, compared with under 1% of those in urban areas. The percentage reporting one bus every 64 minutes or more was highest for Orkney and Shetland (51-54%), Eilean Siar (44%), Argyll & Bute and Highland (25-29%).
3.2.3 In 1999/2000, 36% of householders in large urban areas reported at least one bus every 13 minutes, compared with small percentages of householders in small towns and rural areas. At most 1% of householders in Angus, Argyll & Bute, Clackmannanshire, Dumfries & Galloway, Eilean Siar, Moray, Orkney, Scottish Borders and Shetland said that there was at least one bus every 13 minutes. In contrast, high percentages reported at least one bus every 13 minutes in Dundee (47%), Inverclyde and Renfrewshire (43-44%), and Edinburgh (40%).
3.3 Availability of bus services to the population
3.3.1 Tables 1 and 2 looked at the availability of bus services to households, whereas Table 3 does so in terms of percentages of the population. The left hand part of Table 3 covers people in households with walking times to the nearest bus stop of up to 6 minutes. Overall, in 1999/2000, about 85% of people lived within 6 minutes walk of a bus stop, and they included 17% in households where it was said that there was at least one bus every 13 minutes, 24% with a bus every 14-26 minutes, 25% with a bus every 27-63 minutes, and 15% in households where the respondent did not know the frequency of the bus service. Just under 10% of people lived within 7-13 minutes walk of a bus stop, and 4% lived more than 14 minutes walk away.
3.3.2 Again, there were considerable differences between urban and rural areas. In 1999/2000, 32% of people in large urban areas were said to be within 6 minutes walk of a service with a frequency of at least one bus every 13 minutes, compared with very small percentages of those living in small towns and in rural areas. The percentage was highest for Dundee (44%) and Inverclyde and Renfrewshire (38-40%); thirteen Council areas had values below 5%.
3.3.3 While few people in urban areas lived within 6 minutes walk of an infrequent service (one bus every 64 or more minutes), 12% of people in "accessible" rural areas and 26% of people in "remote" rural areas did so. The percentage of people living close to an infrequent service was particularly high for Eilean Siar and Shetland (37-38%), Orkney (31%) and Argyll & Bute (21%).
3.4 Views on the convenience and quality of public transport
3.4.1 In the second part of the SHS interview, one randomly-chosen adult member of the household is asked about his/her circumstances and views. As it is sometimes not possible to arrange an interview with the chosen person, these results are based on smaller sample numbers than the earlier analyses. One set of questions is about the convenience of public transport and of some other types of services (such as post office, doctor's surgery, etc). The interviewer says: "… please tell me how convenient or inconvenient you would find it to make use of their services during their normal opening hours, assuming that you needed to?" The left-hand part of Table 4 shows how the "convenience" of public transport was rated in 1999/2000: overall, 43% of adults said it was "very convenient" and 32% described it as "fairly convenient", 4% responded "neither convenient nor inconvenient", 3% had no opinion, 9% thought it "fairly inconvenient" and a further 9% felt it was "very inconvenient".
3.4.2 As with the availability of bus services, there is a marked difference between urban and rural areas in views of the convenience of public transport. This is illustrated in Chart C. In 1999/2000, 54% of adults in large urban areas regarded public transport as "very convenient" compared with only 14% of those in "remote" rural areas and 22% of people in "accessible" rural areas. Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverclyde, Renfrewshire and West Dunbartonshire all had 51-57% of adults describing public transport as "very convenient", compared with just 3% in Orkney and 13% in Shetland (in every other area, at least 25% said "very convenient").
3.4.3 Public transport was rated "very inconvenient" by 35% of adults in "remote" rural areas and 21% of those in "accessible" rural areas; these areas also had a further 18-19% describing it as "fairly inconvenient". 44% of Orcadians said that it was "very inconvenient", as did 20-23% of adults in Angus, Highland and Shetland. These areas also had a further 15-20% who felt that public transport was "fairly inconvenient".
3.4.4 The randomly-chosen adult is also asked about aspects of the immediate neighbourhood: which, if any, does he/she particularly like; and which, if any, does he/she particularly dislike? The interviewer probes to establish the person's views, and can record one or more of 14 "likes" (including "good public transport", "area well maintained", "safe area / low crime", "friendly people" and "good local schools") and 17 "dislikes" (such as "poor public transport", "problems with dogs", "poor local shops", "drug abuse" and "noise"). Table 4 shows that, overall, in 1999/2000, 17% said that good public transport was an aspect of the neighbourhood that they liked, and 5% said that poor public transport was an aspect that they disliked.
3.4.5 Chart D shows that the percentage referring to good public transport was highest in the large urban areas (27%) and lowest in "remote" rural areas (2%) and "accessible" rural areas (5%). 29-33% of adults in Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow felt that "good public transport" was one of the aspects of their neighbourhood that they liked, whereas under 5% of those in Eilean Siar, Moray, Orkney and Scottish Borders did so. "Poor public transport" was one of the aspects of their neighbourhood that was disliked by 13% of adults living in rural areas. Among the Council areas, the highest percentages referring to poor public transport were in Shetland (15%) and Argyll & Bute and Scottish Borders (10-11%); in all other areas, under 10% mentioned "poor public transport".
4.1 The interviewer asks about any motor vehicles normally available for private use by members of the household. Table 5 shows that, in 1999/2000, almost two-thirds (64%) of households had one or more motor vehicles, and the same percentage had one or more cars. Chart F shows that the percentage of households which had one or more motor vehicles was highest for rural areas (81%) and lowest for large urban areas (53%). The Council areas with the highest percentages were Aberdeenshire, East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire (81-83%); Glasgow (41%) and Dundee and Renfrewshire (51-54%) had the lowest. As very few households without a car had any other type of motor vehicle, the next section looks at the number of cars available to households.
4.2 Availability of cars
4.2.1 The left-hand part of Table 5 shows that, in 1999/2000, overall, 45% of households had one car available for private use, 16% had two and 2% had three or more. Households in rural areas were the most likely to have two or more cars: about 32% of those in "accessible" rural areas, and around 26% of those in "remote" rural areas, did so. Chart E illustrates how car availability varies between Council areas. The percentage of households having two or more cars was highest for East Renfrewshire (about 36%) and Aberdeenshire, East Dunbartonshire and Stirling (around 31-32%). Only about 13% of households in large urban areas had two or more cars, with the percentage being lowest for Glasgow (about 8%) and Dundee and Inverclyde (around 11-12%).
4.2.2 Overall, 36% of households did not have a car in 1999/2000. The percentage without a car was highest in large urban areas (47%), and lowest in rural areas (20-21%). Glasgow (60%), Dundee (49%) and Inverclyde, Renfrewshire and West Dunbartonshire (44-46%) had the highest percentages without a car; Aberdeenshire, East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire (18-19%) had the lowest values.
4.3 Availability of company vehicles
4.3.1 In 1999/2000, 7% of households had one or more company vehicles available for private use. There was not a great deal of variation between the different types of area (the figures ranged from 5% for "remote" small towns to 10% for "accessible" rural areas). There were greater differences between Council areas: the percentage of households with a company vehicle was lowest in Dundee, Eilean Siar, Glasgow, Inverclyde, Moray and North Ayrshire (2-4%) and highest in East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire (15%) and Perth & Kinross and Stirling (12%).
4.4 Bicycles which can be used by adults
4.4.1 The interviewer asks whether the household has any bicycles which can be used by adults. Table 5 shows that, in 1999/2000, 33% of households had one or more bicycles. This percentage varied with the type of area, from 24% for households in large urban areas to 45-46% for those in rural areas. The lowest percentages were found in Glasgow and Dundee (17-19%) and North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire (25%); Aberdeenshire, Moray and Orkney had the highest percentages (50-52%).
5.1 The interviewer asks the Highest Income Householder (or his/her spouse/partner) about the type (if any) of driving licence held by each adult member of the household. In cases where an adult is said to have a full driving licence, the interviewer asks how often the person drives nowadays. Two points should be noted. First, some of the answers were not provided by the person to whom they relate. Second, because a full driving licence is only available to those who are aged 17 or over, the statistics in this section, and in Tables 6 and 7, relate only to people aged 17+.
5.2 Driving licences
5.2.1 Table 6 shows that, in 1999/2000, almost two-thirds (65%) of people aged 17+ were said to have a full driving licence (car or motorcycle), and a further 5% had a provisional driving licence. Very few people were currently disqualified, had a licence suspended on medical grounds, or did not have a licence because they had not reapplied at age 70. More than a quarter (28%) of people aged 17+ had never held a UK driving licence.
5.2.2 Chart F shows that, in 1999/2000, the percentage of people aged 17+ who held a full driving licence was lowest in large urban areas (57%) and highest in rural areas (78%). Glasgow (47%) and Dundee, Inverclyde, Renfrewshire and West Dunbartonshire (54-57%) were the Council areas with the lowest percentages; Aberdeenshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Orkney and Shetland had the highest values (76-80%).
5.2.3 The percentage of people aged 17+ who had a provisional licence did not vary greatly between the different types of area (ranging only from 4% to 6%) or between different Council areas (being between 3% and 8% in each case). The percentage who had never held a UK driving licence did vary greatly, in the opposite way to the percentage holding a full driving licence: it was lowest for rural areas (16-17%) and highest for large urban areas (35%); Aberdeenshire, Orkney and Shetland had the lowest values (14-16%) and Glasgow (45%) and Dundee, Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire and West Dunbartonshire (34-38%) had the highest.
5.3 Frequency of driving
5.3.1 In cases where a person is described as having a full driving licence (either car or motorcycle), the interviewer asks the Highest Income Householder (or his/her spouse/partner) how often the person drives nowadays. The results are shown in Table 7. Overall, in 1999/2000, 45% of people aged 17+ were said to drive every day, and a further 8% drove at least three times per week (but not every day). 4% were described as driving once or twice a week, and a few people reportedly drove less frequently: 1% "at least two or three times a month"; 1% "at least once a month"; and 2% "less than once a month". The 4% of people who were said to hold a full driving licence but "never drive nowadays" accounted for the remainder of the 64% who had a full driving licence.
5.3.2 Chart F shows that people aged 17+ who lived in rural areas were most likely to drive every day: 57% of those living in "accessible" rural areas, and 54% of those in "remote" rural areas, did so, compared with only 37% of those in large urban areas. The percentages driving at least three times per week (but not every day) were also higher in rural areas (10-12%) than in urban areas (7%). There was little variation between the different types of area in the (small) percentages for the other categories of those who hold a full driving licence (the differences in the percentages who do not have a full driving licence were described earlier).
5.3.3 In 1999/2000, the percentage said to drive every day was highest for Aberdeenshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire and Shetland (57-59%) and lowest for Glasgow (29%), Dundee and Edinburgh (35-36%) and Inverclyde and West Dunbartonshire (40%). 14% of adults aged 17+ in East Lothian, and 12% of those in Dumfries & Galloway, drove at least three times a week (but not every day), compared with 4% in Glasgow. There was not much variation in the other categories, apart from the percentages without a full driving licence (described earlier).
6.1 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.
6.2 Walking
6.2.1 The left-hand side of Table 8 shows that, in 1999/2000, 47% 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, 19% answered that they had made such a trip on 1-2 days, another 19% reported that they had done so on 3-5 days, and 15% responded that they had done so on 6-7 days. Therefore, 53% 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 G shows that the percentage who said that they had walked to go somewhere was about the same (between 54-58%) for adults in urban areas and small towns, but was much lower for those in rural areas (36-38%). Aberdeen, East Dunbartonshire and Edinburgh had the highest percentages (61-65%), and Aberdeenshire, Eilean Siar and Orkney had the lowest (36-40%). 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 Argyll & Bute, Inverclyde and Stirling (20-22%), and lowest for Aberdeenshire, East Renfrewshire, Eilean Siar and Orkney (7-10%).
6.2.2 The right-hand side of Table 8 provides information about walking for pleasure or to keep fit (including walking a dog). In 1999/2000, 59% of adults said that they had not done so in the past seven days, 16% had done so on 1 or 2 days, 11% had done so on 3-5 days and 13% had done so on 6-7 days. Therefore, 41% 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 G shows that this percentage was highest in rural areas (50-54%) and small towns (45-49%) and lowest in urban areas (36-39%). Argyll & Bute (62%) and Moray and Scottish Borders (55-57%) had the highest percentages; North Lanarkshire (26%) and Glasgow (31%) 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 Argyll & Bute and Scottish Borders (26-28%) and lowest in Aberdeen, Eilean Siar, Glasgow, North Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire (8-9%).
6.3 Cycling
6.3.1 Table 9 shows the equivalent results for cycling. In 1999/2000, only 3% of adults said that they had cycled as a means of transport in the previous seven days. There was little variation across Scotland. The percentages for Council areas ranged between 1% and 7%. 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.
6.3.2 In 1999/2000, 4% of adults said that they had cycled for pleasure or to keep fit in the previous seven days. Again, there was not much variation across Scotland: the percentages for Council areas ranged between 1% and 7%.
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 whose base is at home, and who each day goes to 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. So, for example, the "travel to work" percentages for Edinburgh were calculated from the information provided by the sample members who lived in Edinburgh, and 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 10 shows that, in 1999/2000, 67% of commuters said that they usually travelled to work by car or van (56% as the driver and 11% as a passenger), 14% walked to work, 12% went by bus, 3% took a train (or the Glasgow Underground), 2% cycled and 3% 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 (68%) and "remote" rural areas (63%) and lowest for "remote" small towns (46%). The Council areas with the highest percentages driving to work were East Renfrewshire (74%), and Aberdeenshire, East Dunbartonshire, Falkirk and South Ayrshire (67-70%); Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Scottish Borders had the lowest value (all 45%). The percentage who said that they were a car or van passenger was between 9% and 14% for every type of area. However, there were some large differences between Council areas, with the estimate ranging from 4-6% for Argyll & Bute, East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire to 16% for Dundee and 25% for Scottish Borders. Taking drivers and passengers together, people travelling by car or van accounted for 52% of Edinburgh commuters, and 55% for Glasgow, compared with 77-79% for East Renfrewshire, Fife and South Ayrshire: this is illustrated in Chart H.
7.4.2 Overall, in 1999/2000, 14% said that they usually walked to work. This percentage was highest in "remote" small towns (25%) and lowest in "accessible" rural areas (9%). It ranged from 5-6% in East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire to 21-23% in Argyll & Bute, Dumfries & Galloway and Orkney.
7.4.3 The bus was said to be the usual means of travel to work for 12% of commuters in 1999/2000. The figures for different types of area ranged from 5% for "remote" rural areas to 19% in large urban areas. Clackmannanshire, Moray, Orkney and Shetland had the lowest percentages (3-4%), and Glasgow and Midlothian (20-21%) and Edinburgh (25%) had the highest.
7.4.4 Other modes of transport were used by small percentages of commuters. However, it is worth noting that 10-11% of those in East Dunbartonshire and West Dunbartonshire said that they usually travelled to work by rail, and that the highest percentages for bicycle were just 5-6% for Angus, Highland and Moray.
7.5 Working from (or at) home
7.5.1 The left-hand part of Table 11 shows that, in 1999/2000, 8% of employed adults said that they worked from (or at) home. There were particularly high percentages in "remote" rural areas (21%) and in Argyll & Bute, Dumfries & Galloway and Eilean Siar (17%) - see Chart I.
7.6 Car or van commuters
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 11 shows that, in 1999/2000, 45% of them said that they could use public transport to travel to work, and 55% said that they could not. The percentage who could use public transport was particularly high for large urban areas (60%), and for Aberdeen, Glasgow and West Dunbartonshire (63-66%) - see Chart I. The percentage who said that they could not use public transport was particularly high for "remote" rural areas (86%), and for Orkney (93%) and Dumfries & Galloway and Moray (82-83%).
7.6.2 Those who drove to work were asked where they parked. Table 12 shows that, in 1999/2000, 67% said that they parked free of charge in a car park provided by their employer, 15% parked on the street at no cost and 5% parked free of charge in another car park. Only 6% paid for parking in a car park provided by the employer, 3% used a commercial car park, and 1% paid for an on-street parking space. These percentages did not vary greatly with the type of area - for example, the percentage who parked free of charge in a car park provided by their employer ranged from 60% for large urban areas to 72% for "accessible" small towns; the percentage who parked on the street at no cost was between 12% for other urban areas and "accessible" rural areas and 22% for large urban areas. There was greater variation between Council areas: for "free car park provided by employer", the range was from 51% for Glasgow to 80% for Falkirk and West Lothian; for "on the street at no cost" it was from 7% for Falkirk to 29-30% for Glasgow and Inverclyde. However, it must be remembered that the figures for some Council areas are based on small samples, so could be subject to sampling errors of several percentage points.
8.1 In cases where the household includes one or more pupils in full-time education at school, the interviewer asks about the usual method of travel to school of one of them (who is randomly-chosen from among all the pupils in the household).
8.2 Table 13 shows that, in 1999/2000, walking was reported to be the usual method of travel to school for 55% of pupils in full-time education at school, about 23% were said to go by bus, and 19% went by car or van. Only 1% cycled to school. Other modes of transport, such as trains and taxis, were the usual method of travel for only 2% of pupils.
8.3 There were big differences between urban areas and rural areas. In 1999/2000, about three-fifths of pupils in towns and cities walked to school, compared with 37% of pupils in "accessible" rural areas and 25% of those in "remote" rural areas. The percentage who went by bus was about 15-19% for those in towns and cities, 40% in "accessible" rural areas and 59% in "remote" rural areas. The percentage who travelled by car or van did not vary much with type of area, being between 14% for "remote" rural areas and 22% for "remote" small towns.
8.4 Some of the percentages for different Council areas vary greatly, but it must be remembered that they are all based on samples of between about 100 and 600. Therefore, they could be subject to sampling errors of several percentage points, which could exaggerate the extent of differences between Council areas. The percentage who walked to school was highest in Clackmannanshire, Dundee and East Lothian (66-68%), and lowest in Eilean Siar and Shetland (15-19%). The "bus" percentage ranged from 8% for East Lothian to 66% for Eilean Siar, and the percentage who were taken to school by car or van varied from 12% in Moray to 32% in East Renfrewshire.
9.1 The urban / rural classification shown in the tables was developed for use in analysing the results of the SHS. It is based on settlement sizes, and (for the less-populated areas) the estimated time that would be taken to drive to a settlement with a population of over 10,000. The classification is based on postcodes. First, each postcode in Scotland was classed as either "urban" or "non-urban" on the basis of its "density" (measured in terms of the numbers of [a] residential and [b] non-residential addresses per hectare). Then, clumps of adjacent "urban" postcodes, which together contained more than a certain total number of addresses, were grouped together to form "settlements". (Any apparently "non-urban" postcodes which were entirely surrounded by "urban" postcodes, or by a combination of "urban" postcodes and coastline, were reclassified as "urban", and included in the relevant settlements.)
9.2 Six categories were then defined:
9.3 Table 14 shows how many sample households in each Council area were counted in each of the categories of the urban/rural classification (a few cases could not be classified by type of area, and a few cases might have been mis-classified). The table, and Chart J, show that most Councils contain more than one type of area. For example, although most of the sample households in the area of the Aberdeen City Council are in a "large urban area", small percentages are in areas classified as "accessible" small towns and "accessible" rural areas. Similarly, Aberdeenshire includes each of the different types of area apart from "large urban area". As a result, there may be some apparent inconsistencies between, say, the figures for (a) rural areas and (b) what might be thought of as "mainly rural" Councils. For example, a percentage could be much higher for one or both of the "rural areas" categories than for any of what might be regarded as "mainly rural" Councils, because each of the latter includes "small town" areas.
10.1 Although the SHS's sample is chosen at random, the people who take part in the survey will not necessarily be a representative cross-section. For example, purely by chance, the sample could include disproportionate numbers of certain types of people, in which case the survey's results would be affected. In general, the smaller the sample from which an estimate is produced, the greater the likelihood that the estimate could be misleading. As an example, Table 13 provides information about travel to school. In some cases, the figure for a Council area is based on data for only a hundred or so school pupils, each of whom therefore represents about 1% of the total. So, which particular households were selected for inclusion in the sample could make a significant difference to the results, and they are therefore subject to considerable potential sampling variability. For example, the estimate of the percentage of pupils in that Council area who cycle to school would have been two or three percentage points higher had the SHS sample included, purely by chance, just two or three more children who cycled to school. In a "low population density" Council area, the "clustering" of the sample increases the potential sampling variability: for example, the estimated percentage who walk to school could be over-estimated greatly if, by chance, disproportionately many of the "rural" sample clusters chosen were in villages with schools, and disproportionately few were in places far from schools. Hence, an estimate that (say) 50% walk to school, produced from a sample of 100 or so school pupil households, may only indicate that the true value for the area is likely to be between 40% and 60%. Results produced from a small sample could therefore be greatly affected by sampling variability. The larger the sample, the less likely it is that the results will be affected greatly by sampling variability.
10.2 The likely extent of sampling variability can be quantified, by calculating the "standard error" associated with the estimate of a quantity produced from a random sample. Statistical sampling theory states that, on average:
By convention, the "95% confidence interval" for a quantity is defined as the estimate plus or minus about twice the standard error (from sampling theory, the interval is plus or minus 1.96 times the standard error), because there is only a 5% chance (on average) that a sample would produce an estimate that differs from the true value of that quantity by more than this amount.
10.3 There is no simple "rule of thumb" for the size of standard errors: the standard error of the estimate of a percentage depends upon several things:
10.4 Table 15 shows the "95% confidence limits" for estimates of a range of percentages calculated from sub-samples of a range of sizes (NB: the confidence limits for estimates of x% and for (100-x)% are the same). The table was produced in the same way as the tables of "95% confidence limits" in the "Annual Report" volumes of Scotland's People (see section B.4), but has a more detailed breakdown of the smaller sample sizes, because this bulletin provides figures for individual Council areas, some of which are based on samples of only a few hundred.
10.5 The interpretation of an entry in Table 15 is best explained by an example:
10.6 As an example of the use of this table, it will be seen from figure at the end of the last row of Table 1 that there were 817 households in West Lothian in the survey in 1999/2000. The first figure in the last row of Table 1 shows that an estimated 53% of West Lothian households had a walk of up to 3 minutes to the nearest bus stop. Because that estimate was produced from data for only 817 households, sampling variability could (by chance) produce an error of several percentage points. The entry in the cell at the intersection of the "45 or 55%" column and the "800" row in Table 15 shows that the "95% confidence limits" for the estimate will be roughly +/- 3.8%-points. This means that there is a 1-in-20 chance that the estimate differs from the true value by more than 3.8%-points. It follows that there is roughly a 1-in-3 chance that the estimate differs from the true value by more than 1.9%-points. Clearly, estimates based on smaller samples have wider confidence limits.
10.7 Because the survey's estimates may be affected by sampling errors, apparent differences of a few percentage points between the figures for two Council areas may not be "significant": it could be that the true values for the two areas are similar, but the random selection of households for the survey has, by chance, produced a sample which gives a high estimate for one area and a low estimate for the other. A difference between two areas is "significant" at the conventional "5%" level if it is so large that fewer than one random sample in twenty would be expected to produce a difference of that size (or greater) purely by chance, if the two areas' true values were the same. One way of assessing significance at the 5% level involves comparing the difference with the 95% confidence limits for the two estimates. Suppose that these are +/- 3.0%-points and +/- 4.0%-points, respectively. Clearly:
Statistical sampling theory suggests that a difference whose magnitude is between these values is significant if it is greater than the square root of the sum of the squares of the magnitudes of the limits for the two estimates - in this case, the square root of (3.02 + 4.02) - i.e. the square root of (9 + 16) - i.e. the square root of 25, which is 5.0. So, in this case, a 5.0%-point difference would be considered significant. Similar calculations will indicate whether or not other pairs of estimates differ significantly.
10.8 The above information relates only to sampling variability. The survey's results could also be affected by non-contact / non-response bias: the characteristics of the people who should have been in the survey but who could not be contacted, or who refused to take part, could differ markedly from those of the people who were interviewed. If that is the case, the SHS's results will not be representative of the whole population. Without knowing the true values (for the population as a whole) of some quantities, one cannot be sure about the extent of any such biases in the SHS. However, comparison of SHS results with information from other sources suggests that they are broadly representative of the overall Scottish population, and therefore that any non-contact or non-response biases are not large overall. However, such biases could, of course, be more significant for some sub-groups of the population or in certain Council areas, particularly those which have the highest non-response rates. In addition, because it is a survey of private households, the SHS does not cover some sections of the population - for example, it does not collect information about many students in halls of residence (see section B.2.3). The "Technical Report" volumes of Scotland's People (see section B.4) provide more information on these matters.
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