Personal travel: 2012

Main points

• On average, people living in Wales take almost a thousand trips a year and travel around 7,500 miles or around 144 miles a week.
• The use of the car, either as driver or passenger, dominates personal travel by people living in Wales; taking 2011 and 2012 together, the car accounts for 69% of total trips, and 84% of the distance covered in a year.
• The top two reasons are travel trips for shopping and for ‘commuting and business’ each with around a fifth of trips; the next are ‘visiting friends (and relatives)’ and travel for all sorts of leisure purposes, including ‘just walking’, both with around 15% of trips; the last three broad reasons for travel are ‘education and escort education’, ‘other escort’ and ‘personal business’ each with a tenth of trips.
• An average one way personal travel trip in Wales covered 8 miles. A typical walking trip was for less than a mile; it was 9 miles when made by car or other private transport and was for 6 miles when made by local bus.
• Personal travel in Wales peaked in 2004 and 2005, fell back to a trough around 2007 and 2008 and since has recovered steadily.
• 8 out of 10 journeys to work are by car, and this proportion has remained broadly unchanged for 10 years.  Wales has the highest proportion of people travelling to work by car of any region or country within Great Britain.
• In Wales, just over half of employees made the journey to work in less than 20 minutes; and 85% made it in less than 40 minutes.