Travel in London Travel in London

11. Spotlight: How has travel by Londoners changed – insights from 10 years of the London Travel
Demand Survey (LTDS)
of-demand-for-travel-in-london.pdf). This identified the principal drivers behind
changing travel patterns in London and highlighted the need for further investigation
so that the relationships could be more fully understood. At the same time wider
developments have thrown the spotlight on specific issues that will be of policy
concern in the future – for example an increased appreciation of the links between
active travel and public health outcomes. There also remain many questions about
the various behavioural changes contributing to aggregate outcomes, the reasons
for these, and where the trends are most likely to go next.
The material in this chapter picks up eight ‘topical transport questions’ and uses the
ten years of LTDS data now available, alongside evidence from other sources where
appropriate, to provide a brief analytical perspective on each of these questions.
The intention is not necessarily to provide definitive or comprehensive ‘answers’;
rather it is to highlight what LTDS data can contribute to the debate in each case.
Important note
The focus in this chapter is on London residents (as opposed to travel by all people
in London). In interpreting statistic presented on a per capita basis, it should be
recognised that the absolute number of people resident in London has increased
substantially in recent years (see also chapters 2 and 12 of this report).
11.3 Have there been any substantial changes in the way that Londoners
travel over the last 10 years?
Introduction
It is sometimes held that developments to technology and factors such as flexible
working patterns would reduce the need for people to travel, although in aggregate
terms travel does not, from the evidence presented in chapter 2 of this report,
appear to be reducing. Total travel demand in London is broadly rising in line with
increasing population. A related observation, but one with different implications, is
that people on average tend to have ‘fixed’ time and travel budgets, at least at an
unconscious and collective level. An implication of this would be that, as average
travel speeds increase or decrease, the distance travelled changes correspondingly,
or vice versa, thereby influencing factors such as home and workplace location over
the long term. What does LTDS tell us about these things?
Personal trip rates
Figure 11.1 shows the average number of trips per person by London residents over
the 10 years of LTDS, sub-divided by gender. It is apparent from the graphic that
there is, in fact, a slow but consistent downward tendency in per capita trip rates
for London residents, with average falls of 1.0 per cent per year for men, and 0.7
per cent per year for women.
The relatively sharp reduction of 2008/09 and the following 2 years is at least partly
a reflection of the economic recession, feeding through to lower activity levels and
trip rates. Although later years show a recovery, the balance of the trend since the
start of the current decade is clearly downwards. On the basis of this evidence,
therefore, it would seem that the last decade has seen a tendency for London
residents to travel less, on average, per capita. A particularly notable feature of the
graphic is the reduction in car based trip rates – reflecting the wider modal shift that
has been seen in London. Although there has been a corresponding shift towards
206 Travel in London, Report 8