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Scottish Household Survey Travel Diary results

6. When people travel (Tables 12 to 15; Charts G and H)

6.1 Start time of reported journeys

6.1.1 Table 12 shows the start time of reported journeys in bands. Section A5.2 explains why journey start and end times will not be precise. Only 3% of all journeys started before 7am; thereafter there were similar percentages (14-18%) starting in each of the time bands chosen. There was a little variation in start time of journeys by sex with the difference between the sexes not greater than 3 percentage points for all bands. There is much more variation in journey start time by age-group as shown in chart G. Around 17% of journeys by adults in the 16-59 age-groups started from 7am to 9:30am compared to 6% for people aged 80+. Similarly, 25% of journeys by 16-19 year olds started from 6:30pm onwards in contrast to 7% of journeys by the over 80’s. Over three-quarters of journeys by the over 80’s started between 9:30am and 4:30pm compared with under half of all journeys by adults.

Chart G: Journeys reported by adults (16+) - start time of journey by age-group: 1999/2000

6.1.2 Journey start times varied with the main mode of travel used. 36% of taxi/minicab journeys and 23% of passenger car or van journeys started from 6:30pm onwards compared with only 7% of bus journeys. 27% of rail journeys started from 7am to 9:30am. Journey start time also varies greatly by the purpose of the journey. Almost a third of journeys for the purposes of "commuting", "business" and "education" started from 7am to 9:30am compared with much smaller percentages for all other purposes, and only between 7% and 9% of these journeys start from 6:30pm onwards. In contrast, 51% of eating and drinking journeys, 40% of sport and entertainment journeys, and 32% of visiting friends and relatives journeys started from 6:30pm onwards.

6.1.3 There was not much variation in journey start time by urban / rural classification. However, Chart H illustrates that start times of journeys varied depending on whether the day of travel was at the weekend or on a weekday: the highest percentages of journeys on weekdays started between 8am to about 9am and between 4pm and 6pm. This is in contrast to the start time of journeys at the weekend where few started before 9am and the highest percentage started between 1 and 2pm.

Chart H: Journeys reported by adults (16+) - start time of journey: by day of week 1999/2000

6.2 Duration of journeys

6.2.1 Table 13 shows the duration of reported journeys in minutes. (Section A5.2 indicates why these will not be precise). 5% of all journeys were less than 5 minutes long, 25% were 5 to 10 minutes long, 30% were 11 to 20 minutes long and only 3% of all journeys took 180 minutes (3 hours) or over. There was very little difference in journey duration by sex or by age. However, there was considerable difference in duration by main mode of travel: 27% of walking journeys and 34% of taxi/minicab journeys took 5 to 10 minutes compared with 7% of bus journeys and 4% of rail journeys. 23% of bus journeys were 21 to 30 minutes long compared to 15% of walking journeys and 15% of driving journeys. While most modes of transport had no more than 2-4% of journeys over 3 hours: 10% of rail journeys and 17% of "other" journeys were over 3 hours long. Journey time also varies with journey purpose. In particular, 28% of business journeys were over 3 hours long compared with 1% of commuting journeys. Journey duration varied between urban and rural areas. 36% of journeys made by people who lived in "remote small towns" were 5 to 10 minutes long compared to 22% of journeys by adults living in "large urban areas" and "accessible rural areas". Only 9% of journeys by people living in "remote small towns" were 21 to 30 min long compared to 14-18% of journeys by adults who lived in other areas. There is some variation in journey duration by the start time of the journey. 11% of journeys starting before 7am took 3 hours and over compared to (unsurprisingly) 1% of journeys starting from 6:30pm onwards.

6.3 Day of week of travel

6.3.1 Tables 14 and 15 show row percentages and column percentages respectively of the day of week of travel. Table 14 illustrates that there is not much variation by day of week except for, as one would expect, fewer journeys on Sundays (12% of journeys compared to 14-16% of journeys on each of the other days of the week). Similarly there seems to be no variation by sex and age-group. There is more variation by day of week for the main mode of travel. Fewer bicycle journeys seem to be made at the weekends with 8% of bicycle journeys on a Saturday and 10% of bicycle journeys on a Sunday compared to weekdays (12-21%), although it must be remembered that these percentages are based on a total of only slightly over 500 bicycle journeys, so may not be very reliable. Similarly, only 5% of bus journeys and 4% of rail journeys are on a Sunday, reflecting the reduced services then. 24% of taxi/minicab journeys were made on Saturdays. The day of week of travel also varies with the purpose of the journey, with more shopping journeys on a Saturday (20% of all shopping journeys compared to 11-16% on each of the other days). There are higher percentages of journeys with purposes of "visiting friends and relatives" and "holiday and day trips" at the weekends than during the week. Also, a higher percentage of eating and drinking journeys are made on Fridays (19%) and Saturdays (26%) than other days of the week.

6.3.2 There was not much variation in the day of week of travel with the current situation of the interviewee. However, there was some apparently large variation in the day of week of travel for people living in different types of urban and rural areas — for example, people living in "remote small towns" reported many more journeys on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays than on the other four days of the week. It is not known to what extent these are genuine differences, rather than the result of sampling variability.

6.3.3 Table 15 shows the percentages of journeys made on each day. For example, on Monday 46% of journeys were made by men and 54% by women. This does not vary much on the other days of the week. As one would expect, commuting accounts for a higher percentage of journeys (25-28%) on weekdays than at weekends (9-11%), and the percentage of journeys for the purpose of shopping is highest on Saturdays: 34% compared with 20-23% of journeys on other days.

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