Travel surveys and studies over the last decade have revealed a growing trend to use the car less for local journeys.
In January 2018, the Centre for Transport and Society (UWE, Bristol) and the Transport Studies Unit (University of Oxford) published a study, commissioned by the Department for Transport (DfT). This sought to understand the ways the changes in young people’s social and economic conditions, lifestyles and attitudes impacts their travel behaviour, and how those changes may affect future travel demand. The study found that “young people generally travel less now, with the total number of trips per person made by young men falling by 28% between 1995-99 and 2010-14”.
This is in contrast to the “baby boomers” of the fifties and sixties, who were the spearhead of a rapid, prolonged and persistent growth in driver licence holding, car ownership and car use, that peaked in 1995, with older members of the generation X birth cohort. “The general trend has been for each cohort of young people since the early 1990s to own and use cars less than the preceding cohort, and for the growth in car use with age to also be at a lower rate”. PBA’s All Change Report, 2018
Trips, distance, and hours travelled per person indexed 1996-2015
The reasons for the decline in car use are numerous, interconnected and complex due to their interactions, but are considered to be related to:
Increasing recognition of environmental concerns amongst younger people. A shift towards more urban living, reliance in “on demand” services – not just for media, but for food and retailing
Motoring costs (especially in the context of declining disposable income).
The stagnation in wage rates seen by young people.
Increases in housing expenditure.
A decline in disposable income that has not been experienced by older adults.
Decline in home ownership and re-urbanisation.
Changes in the values and attitudes of society – arguably noticeable in younger people, especially related to the valuation of time, the reliability of delivery services and a more global mode of thinking.
The 2016 PBA report titled “Planning Transport and Development – All change?” presents a number of key facts based upon published DfT statistics as follows.
There have been huge changes to our travel patterns over the last 20 years. The number of trips (in all regions) and number of miles travelled per person per year have declined since the late 1990s, whilst average trip distance and time have increased…in both rural and urban areas.
Despite a 9% increase in population, total personal car traffic has remained broadly constant between 2002 and 2014.
Commuting miles per person per year have reduced by 7%.
Total miles travelled per person per year has reduced by 7%.
Car driver and passenger travel has reduced by 11%.
There has been a reduction in car travel in all age and gender bands, except men and women over 60.
Since 2002 in England, travel distance by non-car modes has increased by 19%, with the biggest increase being seen in surface rail travel, and rail usage has increased in all areas, except the most rural areas of the country.
