The National Travel Survey (NTS) is an annual household survey of travel covering residents of Great Britain.
Every household member in the sample is asked to keep a seven-day travel diary of all personal travel within Great Britain. Parents are asked to keep the diary for young children. Diary details include the purpose of each journey made, the modes of transport used, the timing of the journey, and the origin and destination.
The household members are also interviewed (using CAPI- Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing) to provide background demographic data, such as age, sex, income and employment status, and other information relevant to travel such as ownership of cars and other vehicles, details of driving licences, the availability of local public transport, and disabilities affecting transport use.
Only travel within Great Britain, by British residents living in private households is included. Most personal travel over 50 yards is included, including walking. Walking, cycling and other travel off the public highway are not included in the survey, although activities such as jogging and walking the dog along a road or cycling on cycleways are included.
Travel in the course of work by people whose work is to travel (such as bus drivers, postmen and deliverymen) is excluded, but travel in the course of other work is included. For example, this includes a business person travelling to a meeting, a doctor or health visitor on their rounds, or a plumber fetching materials to complete a job.
Sources
A sample of households is taken throughout Great Britain. In 2006, the achieved sample just under 8,300 ‘fully responding' households. From 2002, the sample size has been increased sufficiently to allow more single year statistics to be presented, rather than the combined 3-year average as previously used.
Data Availability:
Various data associated with people's travel patterns throughout Britain are available at a regional level, including:
Data from the National Travel Survey is available as a series of tables and graphs which can be broken down to a regional level. Although it is possible to identify residents of a particular local authority area, results at this level are not necessarily representative, and sample sizes are too small to give more than minimal information about their travel. From 2002, the sample is representative at sub-regional level allowing some analysis at greater geographic detail.
In addition to geographic information on administrative areas, such as Government Office Regions, the NTS can identify residents of urban (in different population bands) and rural regions.
Accessing Data:
Output and results from the National Travel Survey can be accessed via the DfT web site at: http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/stat
The main analysis of the 2005 National Travel Survey is contained in Focus on Personal Travel available from the DfT's website at: http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/stat
Seven Personal Travel Factsheets are also available on a number of topics such as Travel to School, Travel to Work, Travel in Urban and Rural Areas also from the DfT website at: http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/stat
Data is generally available by mode, sex, age group and other variables. Customised tables using unpublished NTS data may be obtained from the DfT.
Cost:
Extracts and data from the National Travel Survey obtained from the DfT web page are free. The Transport Statistics Bulletin and Personal Travel Factsheets are available free from the DfT. For customised tables, obtainable from the DfT, there may be a charge.
Contacts:
The Department for Transport is responsible for the National Travel Survey. For all enquiries telephone 020 7944 3097 or Email national.travelsurvey@dft.gsi.
