Travel in London Travel in London

Overview
• Within the overall context of growing absolute levels of demand, and while per
capita trip rates on weekdays have declined slightly over the period of the
survey, per capita weekend trip rates have remained relatively stable, with
overall trip rates in 2014/15 almost the same as in 2005/06. Within this stable
trend, however, there has been a decrease in shopping and personal business
trips and a corresponding increase in leisure trips at weekends.
• The mode share of trips made at the weekend also differs from trips made on
weekdays. More than 30 per cent of weekday trips by London residents are
made using public transport, which falls to around 24 per cent at weekends.
Almost half of all trips at the weekend are by private transport modes, with a
much larger share of car passenger trips. Cycling tends to be more common on
weekdays, reflecting the high share of commute trips on that particular mode.
• Trips at weekends have a very different time profile to weekday trips. In contrast
to weekdays, trips at the weekend have one main peak in the middle of the day,
with this peak being more pronounced on Sundays (between 12:00 and 13:00),
and more spread out across the afternoon on Saturdays, with the peak running
from 10:00 to 16:00. However, average trip lengths are remarkably similar on
weekdays and weekends.
What has been driving the net change in mode share towards public transport,
walking and cycling for travel in London?
• Between 1994 and 2014 there has been a net shift in mode share, at the trip
level, of 13 percentage points away from the private car towards public
transport, walking and cycling. This shift relates to all travel in London, whether
by residents or non-residents. The equivalent shift over the period of the LTDS
survey from 2005 to 2014 was 6.5 percentage points (all trips in London).
• Looking only at London residents, a similar pattern of modal shift has been seen
in the 10 years that LTDS has been running. Among London residents, there was
a net modal shift from private to public transport of 5 percentage points, with
the public transport mode share rising from 26 per cent in 2005/06 to 31 per
cent in 2014/15, and a corresponding decrease in private transport mode share
from 42 per cent to 36 per cent. While this overall trend of modal shift is
representative of changing travel patterns among London residents considered
as a whole, there have been differing trends among different social groups and in
different locations.
• There has been a sustained decline in private transport mode share among inner
London residents, from 27 per cent in 2005/06 to 20 per cent in 2014/15. The
increase in public transport mode share over this period was relatively small,
moving from 37 to 38 per cent. Among inner Londoners, more of the modal
shift away from private transport in the last 10 years has been towards cycling,
with a 2 percentage point increase in mode share, and walking, which has seen a
3 percentage point increase.
• Outer London residents’ private transport mode share also decreased between
2005/06 and 2014/15, but by a comparatively small 4 percentage points. The
increase in public transport mode share among outer Londoners, however, was
much greater than that in inner London, at 6 percentage points. Cycling too saw
an increase in mode share among outer Londoners, of 1 percentage point, but
the mode share of walk trips declined by 4 percentage points over 10 years.
19 Travel in London, Report 8