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)
Table 11.4
Reason for not making a work trip on travel day, weekdays only vs. 7-day
week (LTDS 2011/12 to 2013/14 average).
Full-time worker
Part-time worker
Weekdays Whole week Weekdays Whole week
Do not work on that day 50% 78% 73% 83%
Not well 3% 1% 1% 1%
Working from home 20% 9% 13% 9%
On annual leave 19% 8% 7% 5%
On maternity/paternity leave 5% 3% 2% 2%
Other 3% 2% 2% 2%
All 100% 100% 100% 100%
Source: TfL Planning, Strategic Analysis.
Summary
Travel related to work accounts for 28.8 per cent of trips made by Londoners on an
average weekday (2014/15), and is the primary driver of the maximum capacity
required by the transport networks. Increasing flexibility of working patterns does
appear to have fed through to an overall reduction in work-related travel demand
over the 10-year review period, with an average reduction of 0.4 per cent per year in
commuting trips by Londoners. In absolute terms in terms of peak demand on the
travel networks, however, this has been more than cancelled out by overall
population growth. There is no clear trend, however, for employer’s business trips,
the frequency of which has remained broadly stable at the level of the individual.
There is also evidence that Londoners are travelling more frequently between home
and a work place other than the one they recognise as their ‘usual workplace’,
which could be another manifestation of more flexible working patterns. Working
from home, which is distinguished by the absence of a commuting trip but not
necessarily the absence of other travel, is broadly equivalent in scale to annual
leave (2012/13-2014/15) as a reason why those in full time employment do not
make a commuting trip on any given working day.
11.7 How are changes in London’s age balance affecting travel demand?
Introduction
The age profile of London’s residents affects the types of trips that Londoners
make, including their frequency, purpose, timings and mode. This section looks at
what LTDS can tell us about the travel patterns of people of different age groups,
and how (if at all) these have changed over the available 10 years of data. Some of
the implications of this are considered in Chapter 12 of this report, which looks at
future projections of London’s population and travel demand.
228 Travel in London, Report 8