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)
change from the graphic is an increase in commuting trips made during the evening,
perhaps reflecting the growth of the night-time economy.
Figure 11.16
800
Work related trips by time of day. London residents only.
700
600
Trips (thousands)
500
400
300
200
100
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Trip start hour
Usual workplace (2007/08 to 2008/09) Usual workplace (2013/14 to 2014/15)
Other work (2007/08 to 2008/09) Other work (2013/14 to 2014/15)
Source: TfL Planning, Strategic Analysis.
In contrast to commuting trips, the number of trips made for other work purposes
shows evidence of a small but consistent increase across the working day. This may
reflect a genuine increase in ‘other’ work trips, but could also reflect a particular
type of flexible working pattern where people commute to several different work
places that are not regarded, in terms of the survey, as their ‘usual’ workplace. This
would be more consistent with the observation of stable overall demand patterns
for conventional commuter trips.
Differences by working status
Figure 11.17 shows daily travel distances by mode and working status. It shows that
Londoners in full-time employment generally travel much further than those
working part-time or out of work. Londoners in full-time employment travel an
average of 21.5 kilometres a day, compared to 13.9 kilometres travelled for those
in part-time work. People in employment show a higher propensity to use railbased
modes. Retired Londoners are the only group to show a shorter bus distance
than those in fulltime work – this in part is a reflection of the short-distance nature
of older Londoners’ travel, rather than less bus use on a trip basis.
224 Travel in London, Report 8