Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
2.7 Personal activity and use of time
The population and land use characteristics described in this chapter thus far and the
transport system characteristics described in the previous one all create an envelope of
potential for travel (opportunity or constraint). But travel itself depends fundamentally
on what people choose to do with their time. This embraces
• what activities they wish to engage in (including forms of travel which are enjoyed
for their own sake)
• whether these can be undertaken at home (either intrinsically or by utilising some
form of telecommunication, e.g. telephone, TV, email or internet)
• whether direct contact is preferred, and what degree of choice they want to
exercise between places with the requisite facility.
Although historically it has been possible to expand the degree of choice available
through expenditure on transport, we are not able as individuals to expand the amount
of time at our disposal. This raises the intriguing question of what proportion of our
24-hour day or 365-day year we want to spend travelling (treating this as the necessary
means of engaging directly in a non-home activity) rather than in the activities
themselves, whether at home or away.
Over the last thirty years and more one might have expected the revolution in
telecommunication and information technology to have greatly reduced the demand
for travel. Equally the spread of car availability and improvement in transport systems
should have reduced the average time needed to fulfil a particular trip requirement.
And yet the number of trips undertaken per person and the amount of time spent
travelling have both altered only a little. Trips currently number 1,037 a year on
average (i.e. 20 per week) whilst travel time occupies 383 hours (i.e. just over an hour
a day). Over the last ten years the average number of trips per year has fallen by 5%
whilst the time spent travelling has increased by 4%.
Note that the NTS defines a trip as a one-way course of travel having a single
main purpose. Outward and return halves of a return trip are treated as two separate
trips. A single course of travel - popularly referred to as a journey - which involves
a change of purpose along the way is subdivided into two trips. Incidental purposes
such as stopping to buy a newspaper are disregarded, but not purposes such as taking
or collecting a child from school ('escort education') in the course of another trip.
Walking and cycling trips are included but only insofar as they take place on the public
highway.
Trip-making is concentrated between the hours of 7am and 6pm on weekdays but
more narrowly on Saturdays and even more so on Sundays (Figure 2.3). Overall there
are 5% fewer trips on Saturdays than on weekdays and 27% fewer on Sundays. However
within the 'busy' part of the day, trips are relatively evenly spread at weekends whereas
during the week there are peaks in the early morning and late afternoon linked with
the beginning and end of the conventional school and working days. The afternoon
peak is rather lower and more broadly spread because of the difference in finish times.
(When manufacturing, with its traditional earlier start times, was more common there
was a similar spread in the morning.)
The way in which school-times remain fixed and concentrated within a very narrow
band is a distinctive feature which has major implications for transport planning. One
of the main reasons why the 'school-run' receives so much public comment is that it
 
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