Commuting is down by more than a fifth compared to 2019 and is still falling, the latest official statistics have shown, as the long-term effects of the pandemic continue to be felt.
Figures from the 2024 National Transport Survey (NTS) for England revealed that commuting, the second most common trip purpose, fell by another 5% compared to 2023 and is down a total of 21% compared to 2019.
Shopping trips, the first most common travel purpose, were down 8% on 2019 levels.
Overall, the survey revealed that people made an average of 922 trips last year, an increase of seven from 915 per person in 2023, but still 31 trips shy of the average for 2019.
The NTS is published by the Department for Transport (DfT) and collects information on personal travel by residents of England travelling within Great Britain.
Car use
The NTS found that 25% of trips were under 1 mile, and 70% under 5 miles. For journeys under a mile, 17% were made by car and 81% on foot. For journeys between one mile and five miles, 68% were by car and 19% on foot.
This is a slight reduction in car trips for short journeys from 2023, which saw 69% of 1-5mile journeys taken by car.
In England in 2024, 59% of cars were petrol, 30% were diesel, 6% hybrid, 4% battery electric and 2% plug-in hybrid. Roughly 44% of households had access to one car, with roughly one third (34%) of households having access to two or more.
Car (driver and passenger) trips made up 59% of trips and 76% of distance travelled on average in 2024.
There was a drop in the average number of trips for car drivers in 2024 compared to 2023 (357 trips per person in 2024 compared to 363 in 2023), but there was an increase in trips for passengers (189 trips per person in 2024 compared to 185 in 2023). However, both remain below pre-pandemic levels.
Public transport and active travel
There was a significant 13% increase in surface rail trips from 18 trips per person in 2023 to 21 trips per person in 2024.
Bus use outside of London was also on the rise, from an average of 25 per person in 2023 to 28 per person in 2024, but bus journeys within the capital declined slightly from 14 per person in 2023 to 13.
For active travel, there were 15 cycling trips per person in 2024, the same as in 2023, but still below the 16 cycling trips per person seen in 2019. Overall, cycling made up 2% of journeys made in 2024.
Around 7% of trips in 2024 were multi-modal, an increase from 6% of trips in 2023. However, the majority of trips (93%) in 2024 used a single mode of transport.
For all trips in 2024, car driver was the most frequent mode to begin a trip (38%), followed by walking (34%) and car passenger (20%).
