Indicator
Transport problems when travelling to work
Published
20 June 2024
Last updated
11 December 2024
Time to read
About 1 min
About 1 min
Key points
- In 2024, over one third of people who commuted by public or active (walking or cycling) transport experienced transport difficulties in England.
- Quality is consistently the most common difficulty reported by people who commute by public or active (walking or cycling) transport in England.
Transport difficulties when commuting are associated with poorer mental wellbeing, high blood pressure or a lack of time for activities that support good health, such as preparing healthy meals, exercise or getting enough sleep.
This chart looks at the main transport difficulties experienced by employed people (aged 17–59 years) commuting to work by public transport (such as train, bus or tram) or active modes of transport (cycling or walking).
- In 2024, around 37.9% of employed people (aged 17–59 years) experienced at least one difficulty with their commute by public or active transport.
- Quality is consistently the most common difficulty reported by people who commute by public or active (walking or cycling) transport in England. The percentage of people reporting quality as their main problem has ranged from 13.7% (2012) to 21.0% (2024).
- The data presented here are weighted estimates from the National Travel Survey, a household survey of personal travel for residents in England.
- The average unweighted sample per year includes an average of 2,126 participants who are aged 17 to 59, travel to work using public transport or by walking or cycling and answered a survey question regarding their greatest difficulty with this.
- Some reported problems are based on a low sample sizes (all presented > 10) and as such type of transport problem should be treated as indicative. For 2020, 'distance' is combined with ‘other’ to suppress sample size <10.
- Respondents were asked to state if they usually experience any difficulties travelling to or from work by underground, light rail, tram, train, bus, taxi, bicycle, or foot, and to state which problem creates the most difficulties.
- The ‘availability’ category included ‘journey not possible by public transport’, ‘lack of cycling lanes’ and ‘poor connections’.
- The ‘quality’ category included ‘unreliable public transport’, ‘poor information about public transport’, ‘public transport unpleasant’ and ‘concerns over personal safety’.
- The ‘other’ category included ‘personal disability’, ‘the weather’ and any other reason not mentioned elsewhere.
Data collected for 2020, 2021 and 2022 was impacted by COVID-19 and some or all interviews moved from face-to-face to phone and response rates dropped. In 2024, sample returned to similar to that of pre-COVID-19.
Source: Department for Transport, National Travel Survey, England, 2002–24.
