High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Friday, September 23, 2011
Reasons for Travel
On average, Scots made 965 trips per person per year, and travelled 7,056 miles per person per year, within Great Britain in the two-year period 2007/2008, according to the National Travel Survey ( NTS).
The most frequent purposes of trips were shopping with, on average, 192 trips per person per year, commuting (163 trips per person per year), visiting friends/relatives at home (105), "other personal business" (e.g. trips to/from banks, churches, doctors, hairdressers and libraries - 96) and "other escort" (escorting someone other than to/from education - 92).
Commuting trips accounted for an average of 1,392 miles per person per year. (All averages "per person" include children and pensioners, so the average per commuter will be much higher.) The other main purposes were visiting friends/relatives at home (1,050 miles), holidays and day trips within GB (1,021 miles), shopping (946 miles) and personal travel for business purposes (642 miles).
Since 1985/86, there has been little change in the average number of trips per person per year (it has fluctuated between 972 and 1,112, presumably due to sampling variability). However, the average distance travelled per person per year increased by 2,404 miles - from 4,652 miles in 1985/86 to 7,056 miles in 2007/2008 (with some period-to-period fluctuations attributable to sampling variability). The following purposes together accounted for most of the rise in the average distance travelled per person per year: shopping (up 405 miles); and holidays and day trips (up 467 miles); visiting friends/relatives at home (up 285 miles); commuting (up 412 miles).
The chart shows how the average length of trip has risen, for the purposes for which trips are most often made, over the same period (again, there are some period-to-period fluctuations), and that the overall average length of trip rose from 4.8 miles to 7.3 miles.
The NTS covers travel within Great Britain for personal purposes. It excludes travel in the course of work to convey passengers or to deliver goods. Results are given for periods of two or three years because of the small sample size, and, even then, the figures for some purposes may fluctuate due to sampling variability. In September 2006, the Department for Transport revised the previously-published results for 1995/97 onwards, generally by between 2 per cent and 4 per cent, following the introduction of weighting of the NTS results.
View chart data
Source: Scottish Transport Statistics
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