Survey shows travel still down following pandemic

An Official Statistics Publication for Scotland

A survey of Scotland’s transport and travel habits has found that levels of travel remain lower in 2023 compared with 2019.

Transport Scotland statisticians today released the Transport and Travel in Scotland statistics publication. The publication includes a range of statistics from the Scottish Household Survey (SHS) about the journeys people make and how they travel.

The survey found that in 2023, 64% of people had made some form of journey the day before their survey interview. This is an increase from 2022 (61%), but still well below the 2019 figure of 74%. The average number of journeys made the day before the survey interview dropped from 1.9 in 2019 to 1.6 in 2023.

When people did travel, over half of journeys (51%) were made by driving a car or van. This is down from 55% in 2022. Walking was the next most common mode of transport and saw a rise from 23% of journeys in 2022 to 25% of journeys in 2023. 12% of journeys were made as a car or van passenger, 7% by bus and 2% by rail.

The survey also found that changes in levels of homeworking and commuting habits had persisted. In 2023, the proportion of employed people who described themselves as working at or from home was 29%. This is similar to 2022 (31%), and markedly higher than the figure in 2019 (16%). The proportion of people who reported travelling to work 5 days a week dropped from 62% in 2019 to 41% in 2023.

In other findings, the survey recorded an increase in satisfaction with public transport. The proportion of all survey respondents stating that they were very or fairly satisfied with public transport in 2023 was 64%, an increase from 2022 (58%), but lower than in 2019 (68%).

Satisfaction with public transport was higher amongst actual users of public transport (those that had used bus or train in the past month), with 74% of users reporting that they were satisfied in 2023.

The survey also found an increase in respondents who owned an electric vehicle. 4.7% of driving licence holders reported owning an electric vehicle in 2023. This is an increase from 1.6% in 2019 and 0.3% in 2016.

However, there was also an increase in the percentage of drivers saying they wouldn’t consider buying an electric car, which rose from 42% in 2022 to 54% in 2023.

When asked their reasons for not considering buying a plug-in electric car or van the most common answer given was the cost of vehicle purchase (52%), followed by availability or convenience of charging points (48%) and the battery (i.e. the distance travelled on a charge) (42%).