Method of travel to place of work or study

The method of travel used for the longest part, by distance, of the usual journey to work or place of study.

Total number of categories 12

Individual question 43: How do you usually travel to your main job or course of study (including school)?

• Driving a car or van
• Passenger in a car or van
• Taxi or private hire
• Motorcycle, scooter or moped
• On foot
• Bicycle
• Bus, minibus or coach
• Train
• Underground, subway or tram
• Other

This question collects information used for transport services and policies to inform planning and modelling. The information helps in the assessment of local public transport needs.

This variable is broadly comparable to the variable created for ONS for the 2021 census in England & Wales (transport_to_workplace). The variable for England & Wales does not include those who travel for study as well as work.

This variable is directly comparable to the version created for Scotland's census 2011 as the question has not changed. See the "Known quality issues" section below for detail on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on this variable.

The proportion of people working from home increased from 10.8% in 2011 to 31.6% in 2022 and those studying from home increased from 12.4% to 18.4%. There is currently no more recent evidence for Scotland on the proportion of people working or studying from home. However, looking across the UK, data from the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey for Great Britain suggest that there has been little change in the proportion of people working from home some (i.e., hybrid working) or all of the time since March 2022. Further evidence from England for 2023 showed that the average number of commuting trips remained relatively unchanged from the previous year and below pre-pandemic levels. These results suggest there has not been a large change in the proportion of people working from home at least some of the time since 2022. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people travelling by public transport decreased significantly, as discussed in the COVID-19 impacts section above for bus travel. This also affected data on people travelling by train, with census data showing a decrease in people travelling to work by train from 3.7% in 2011 to 2.3% in 2022. Data from Transport Scotland Scottish Transport Statistics 2023 shows that ScotRail passenger journeys increased from 78 million in 2010-11 to 97 million in 2019-20 before decreasing significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic to 14 million in 2020-21. ScotRail passenger journeys then increased by 36% from 2021-22 to 2022-23, indicating that the number of people travelling to work or study by train in Scotland may have increased since the census took place. 

For method of travel to place of study, around 91,000 children aged under 16 are in the study from home category. These are people who responded their place of study was ‘Distance learning, home schooled or equivalent'. In 2011, this figure was around 74,000. There is not a central source for number of children that do not attend school or another fixed place of learning in Scotland. However, evidence from the pupil census and the private school census compared with the estimated number of children in Scotland would indicate that this figure is likely to be an overestimate of the number of children studying from home. 

The method of travel used for the longest part, by distance, of the usual journey to work or place of study.

Total number of categories 12

12: How do you usually travel to your main place of work or study (including school)?

Tick one box only.

Tick the box for the longest part, by distance, of your usual journey to work or study.

• Driving a car or van
• Passenger in a car or van
• On foot
• Bus, minibus or coach
• Train
• Underground, subway, metro, light rail or tram
• Taxi
• Bicycle
• Motorcycle, scooter or moped
• Other

This question collects information used for transport services and policies to inform planning and modelling. The information helps in the assessment of local public transport needs.

England and Wales

41: How do you usually travel to work?

Tick one box only

Tick the box for the longest part, by distance, of your usual journey to work

• Work mainly at or from home
• Underground, metro, light rail, tram
• Train
• Bus, minibus or coach
• Taxi
• Motorcycle, scooter or moped
• Driving in a car or van
• Passenger in a car or van
• Bicycle
• On foot
• Other

The England & Wales (2011) question only applies to the resident population who are working whereas the Scotland (2011) question applies to those who are working and studying.

Scotland (2001)

The 2001 and 2011 Scotland questions are fully comparable.

The table populations were different for table QS702SC in 2011 and its equivalent 2001 table.  Therefore, in order to allow comparisons between the census years, the 2001 data were re-run using the 2011 table population.  The re-run 2001 data are available as Table A3 from the release 2C section of the downloadable files page.

The full-time student variable was restricted to those aged four or over.  This introduces some differences with the 2001 data as there 22,953 students aged 0 to 3 travelling to school (Table S218).

There are almost 12,000 four and five year olds in the dataset whose parents have answered that they are full time students but when they were asked what address they travel to for course of study they answered that their children are 'not currently studying'.

There are approximately 78,000 students aged 16 or under who report they study from home. This is much higher than the Scottish Government estimates of home-schooled students, and is probably a result of the respondents misunderstanding the question and giving the place where they study or do homework instead of the way they travel to the place of study. Question number 11 (‘What address do you travel to for main job or course of study (including school)’) filters out those who answered that they ‘study/work from home’ therefore they are not required to provide a mode of transport. In many cases the respondents who appear as studying from home have also provided a valid address of the school they attend. However, the postcode supplied was their enumeration postcode rather than where they travel to school. This is likely to have happened because the respondents did not know the postcode of the school their children attend. When this data was processed, a very first step was to check whether the enumeration postcode was the same as the postcode these students travel to. If the postcode was the same, then they were set to ‘studying from home’ and the text was ignored.  One other group of records who appear as studying from home are those who ticked the ‘studying from home’ box at Q11 and did not provided text. For these records the tick was accepted and the postcode processed to be the same as the enumeration postcode.

The number of records who ticked that they study from home but they gave a postcode different than the enumeration postcode is tiny and even though we would correct those records, the number of students who report that they study from home will still be a lot higher than what SG has estimated.

Working from home: It is possible that this number is higher than in reality because people might have misunderstood the question. For example, there will be people who run their own businesses, are self-employed (tutors, hairdressers, etc) and they might have answered ‘working from home’ although they would travel to wherever their clients are, therefore, it should have been ‘no fixed place’ rather than ‘working from home’.

Another issue in the data is that there are a small number of full time students, who live in the UK but appear to study outside the UK. When their forms were checked it turned out that these people are from abroad, but they are full time students in the UK and they provided their home country address when they were asked about the address they travel to for their course of study, and also provided a mode of transport. An example of such a case would be: someone who is a full time student at the University of Aberdeen, the address they travel to is Singapore and the mode of transport is 'walking'.

This variable records how persons usually travel to their main place of work or study (including school). The question asks the person to tick one box only, which describes for the longest part, by distance, of their usual journey. It is not asked of people who have answered 'not currently working or studying' or 'work or study mainly at or from home' to the travel address question.

The questions on travel covered travel to both work and study. It is assumed that responses from persons in employment who are not full-time students related generally to travel to place of work.

Total number of categories 11