2 Background

2.1 This bulletin provides the results of the Transport and travel related questions asked in the Scottish Household Survey (including the travel diary) and uses data from a range of sources to provide context. This publication replaces three previous statistical publications (Main Transport Trends and Household Transport, in 2011 and from the 2013 edition incorporates SHS Travel Diary results). This latter merging is to ensure all SHS transport and travel data is available in the same place and at the same time.

2.2 This publication is split into 4 broad themes:

Personal Travel
Motor vehicles, traffic and driving
Public transport, ferries and aviation
Walking and cycling

2.3 The tables are split as follows:

Scottish Household Survey trends over the past ten years - Table SUM1 (STS Table S3)
Modal trends in Scotland over the past ten years - Table SUM2 (STS Table S1)
Scottish Household Survey tables - Tables 1 to 45 (note that not all tables are updated and included in this publication due to changes to the SHS, see para 2.12)
Scottish Household Survey Travel Diary Tables - Tables TD1 to TD14
(note that table numbering remains the same as in 2012 publications, see para. 2.14)

2.4 Table SUM1 contains statistics which underpin Scotland's National Indicators on congestion (National Indicator 4) and travel to work (National Indicator 48). More information on National Indicators can be found on the Scotland Performs website www.scotland.gov.uk/About/scotPerforms/indicators/publicTransport

2.5 Data sources are listed in Section 9 of this publication. Further explanation of definitions can be found in the relevant topic chapters of Scottish Transport Statistics http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/analysis/statistics/publications/scottish-transport-statistics-previous-editions

2.6 Scottish Transport Statistics will be published in February 2015 and will contain a comprehensive statistical picture of transport statistics in Scotland. For a full list of Transport statistics publications see: http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/analysis/statistics/publications.

Scottish Household Survey

2.7 Most of the tables in this bulletin provide analyses of transport related questions, asked by the Scottish Household Survey (SHS) from 1999 to 2013.

2.8 The SHS is a survey of private households and does not cover some sections of the population - e.g. those living on military bases and most students living in halls of residence will not be included.

2.9 The SHS collects a wide range of information with questions asked about:

the household as a whole
one randomly-chosen adult (aged 16 or over) member of the household
one schoolchild (if there is one in the household)
the Highest Income Householder

2.10 To produce representative results, data are weighted to take account of differences in selection probabilities and non-response.

2.11 The random adult is asked the Travel Diary section of the survey. This asks about travel the respondent made on the previous day, gathering data on where people travelled, the purpose for the journey and how they travelled. There are also some more detailed questions asked for each car journey reported eg about parking and whether the driver perceived the journey to be delayed due to congestion.

2.12 There were changes to the SHS survey methodology for the 2012 survey. This needs to be considered when analysing the survey results. The main changes affecting this publication are a reduction in the sample size for some questions, and a change in the survey structure meaning some questions now only provide data biennially. Additionally, a number of questions (including some which previously provided data for this publication) have been removed from the survey to make room for new questions.

2.13 More detail about the SHS and the changes to the survey can be found in Appendix A and the Scottish Household Survey Annual Report and on the Transport Scotland statistics pages.

2.14 Where no new data is available eg for biennial questions, the latest data has been included for completeness, so some tables show 2012 data and won't have changed since TATIS 2012. For ease of comparison with previous publications, tables have not been renumbered but tables from the SHS Travel diary publication are pre-fixed TD eg Table TD1 is table 1 from the 2012 SHS Travel Diary publication. Table 1 is table one from the TATIS 2012 publication.

Sample size and variability

2.15 Results are subject to sampling variability and care should be taken when interpreting year-on-year changes. Table A shows the confidence limits for the results (Appendix A describes how these should be used).

2.16 Where questions were asked of small numbers of individuals (due to sub sampling or the particular relevance of a question) results are produced by combining years to increase the sample size and therefore the reliability.

2.17 The data was extracted from the SHS database in summer 2013 and does not take into account any subsequent revisions to the data.

Prepared for publication by: Matt Perkins, Andrew Knight, Charlie Lewis

Transport Analytical Services
Transport Scotland
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh EH6 6QQ

Telephone: 0131 244 7256 or 0131 244 1457
transtat@transportscotland.gsi.gov.uk