How have Our Travel Habits Changed Over the Past 50 Years?

We tend to think that travel today is very different from what it was half a century ago. We have easier access to faster forms of transport, and we expect to be able to move quickly and easily whenever we wish. But a recent look at travel behaviour in England – celebrating 50 years of data from the National Travel Survey (NTS) – shows that, while some things have certainly changed, much remains the same. According to the authors of the report, the most interesting change to our travel habits is that ‘we are travelling further but not more often’. In other words, even though the individual trips we take are longer in terms of distance, the number of times we travel has stayed the same over the past 50 years. What’s more, there has been little change in the total time spent travelling due to faster travel speeds. And the purposes of our trips have changed only slightly: the biggest change has been an increase in the number of journeys we take to escort others. Not surprisingly, we’ve seen an increase in car use as they have become more available and affordable. This has been accompanied by a decrease in travel by bus and bike. None of these trends will be surprising to anyone who has thought carefully about the nature of everyday travel in Britain. But there are also some less obvious patterns and trends. In 2014, according to the survey, 22% of all trips were made on foot. For shorter trips, walking was most common – 76% of all trips of less than one mile were made on foot. Though we walk less than we did in the past, travel on foot remains an important means of travel. Unfortunately, this is often ignored in both official statistics and transport planning.