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)
11.9 How do Londoners travel at the weekend?
Introduction
Travel research and transport planning has traditionally focused on weekday travel,
particularly during peak periods. A feature of LTDS is that the data covers weekends
as well as weekdays. This section looks at how travel patterns differ between
weekdays and weekends, and whether these patterns have changed over the 10
years of the survey.
Trip rates by purpose
London residents make fewer trips on average at the weekend compared with
weekdays. This is mainly due to fewer work-related and education trips being made
at the weekend – commuting trips are almost six times higher on weekdays. This is
partly offset by people making more leisure and shopping trips on Saturday and
Sunday. Eighty per cent of all trips at the weekend are for leisure or shopping
purposes, compared with 45 per cent on weekdays.
While trip rates on weekdays have declined over the period of the survey, 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 the weekend (figure 11.33).
Figure 11.33
3.0
Personal trip rates by day of week and purpose.
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
2005/06
2006/07
2007/08
2008/09
2009/10
2010/11
2011/12
2012/13
2013/14
2014/15
2005/06
2006/07
2007/08
2008/09
2009/10
2010/11
2011/12
2012/13
2013/14
2014/15
Trips per person per day
Weekdays
Weekends
Commuting Other work Shopping and personal business Education Leisure Other (inc escort)
Source: TfL Planning, Strategic Analysis.
Travel in London, Report 8 241