Scottish Household Survey: Travel Diary 2011

4. How are people travelling?

• Around half of all journeys in 2011 were made as a driver and just over a third were by public and active travel, which includes walking, cycling and public transport.

Figure 2: Mode of journey, 2011

4.1 Taken as a whole, 35 per cent of journeys were made by public and active travel in 2011, slightly less than a 2 percentage point increase since 2010. [Table 2] [Figure 2]

4.2 Sixty-three per cent of journeys were made by car or van (either as driver or a passenger) in 2011. This was a 2 percentage point drop from 2010 and a return to levels similar to 2007. [Table 2]

4.3 Including short journeys in to the Travel Diary in 2007 caused an increase in the proportion of walking journeys, and corresponding decreases in the proportions of other modes. The proportion of travel modes has been relatively stable since 2007.[Table 2]

Car Occupancy

4.4 Average car occupancy decreased from 1.62 in 2001 to 1.53 in 2011. In a related measure, the percentage of car stages made with the driver as the sole occupant of the car increased by 5 percentage points to 63% over the same period. [Table 9]

4.5 This is probably due to the increase in car availability over this period^[2]. Previous analysis has also suggested that car occupancy varies with journey purpose^[3]. Given the proportion of journeys for commuting has risen since 2007 and commuting journeys report the lowest car occupancy, this may also have contributed.