Scottish travel is still down compared to figures from 2019.

A survey of Scotland’s transport and travel habits has found that there was a reduction in travel in 2022 compared to 2019.

Transport Scotland statisticians today released the Transport and Travel in Scotland statistics publication. The publication includes a range of statistics from the Scottish Household Survey (SHS) about the journeys people make and how they travel. The publication represents the first opportunity to compare pre-pandemic (2019) and post pandemic (2022) travel habits using the Survey. The versions of the survey run in 2020 and 2021 are not comparable with other years due to methodological changes necessitated by the pandemic.

The survey found that in 2022, 61% of people had travelled the day before their survey interview. This is well below the 2019 figure of 74%, and the lowest figure recorded since the current version of the survey was introduced in 2012. The average number of journeys made the day before the survey interview dropped from 1.9 in 2019 to 1.5 in 2022.

When people did travel, the survey found that the journeys made were similar to previous years. The share of journeys made by each transport mode in 2022 was broadly similar to 2019. It found 55% of journeys were made by driving a car or van, up slightly from 53% in 2019. Walking was the next most popular mode of transport (23% of journeys), with bus travel making up 6%.

Scottish people’s purposes for travel remained broadly similar to 2019. Shopping was the most frequent reason for travel (23% of journeys). Commuting was the next most common at 21% of journeys.

The survey also found changes in levels of homeworking and commuting habits. 31% of employed people reported that they currently worked from home in 2022. This compares to 16% in 2019. The proportion of people who reported travelling to work five days a week dropped from 62% in 2019 to 38% in 2022.

Public transport satisfaction down

The survey recorded a drop in satisfaction with public transport. The proportion of all survey respondents stating that they were very or fairly satisfied with public transport in 2022 was 58%, a ten-percentage point drop from 2019 (68%).

However, satisfaction with public transport was higher among actual users of public transport (those that had used bus or train in the past month), with 67% of users reporting that they were satisfied in 2022. However, this also represented a drop in satisfaction compared with 2019 (76%).