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Method used to travel to work by car or van availability

Important information:

As Census 2021 was during a unique period of rapid change, take care when using this data for planning purposes. Due to methodological changes the ‘mainly work at or from home: any workplace type’ category has a population of zero. Please use the 12 category classification of this variable.

Read more about this quality notice.

Summary

This dataset provides Census 2021 estimates that classify usual residents in households in England and Wales by method used to travel to work (2001 specification) and by car or van availability. The estimates are as at Census Day, 21 March 2021.

Variable and dataset information

Area type

Census 2021 statistics are published for a number of different geographies. These can be large, for example the whole of England, or small, for example an output area (OA), the lowest level of geography for which statistics are produced.

For higher levels of geography, more detailed statistics can be produced. When a lower level of geography is used, such as output areas (which have a minimum of 100 persons), the statistics produced have less detail. This is to protect the confidentiality of people and ensure that individuals or their characteristics cannot be identified.

Lower tier local authorities

Lower tier local authorities provide a range of local services. There are 309 lower tier local authorities in England made up of 181 non-metropolitan districts, 59 unitary authorities, 36 metropolitan districts and 33 London boroughs (including City of London). In Wales there are 22 local authorities made up of 22 unitary authorities.

Coverage

Census 2021 statistics are published for the whole of England and Wales. However, you can choose to filter areas by:

  • country - for example, Wales
  • region - for example, London
  • local authority - for example, Cornwall
  • health area – for example, Clinical Commissioning Group
  • statistical area - for example, MSOA or LSOA

Method used to travel to workplace

A person's place of work and their method of travel to work. This is the 2001 method of producing travel to work variables.

"Work mainly from home" applies to someone who indicated their place of work as their home address and travelled to work by driving a car or van, for example visiting clients.

Car or van availability

The number of cars or vans owned or available for use by household members.

Vehicles included:

* pick-ups, camper vans and motor homes

* vehicles that are temporarily not working

* vehicles that have failed their MOT

* vehicles owned or used by a lodger

* company cars or vans if they're available for private use

Vehicles not included:

* motorbikes, trikes, quad bikes or mobility scooters

* vehicles that have a Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN)

* vehicles owned or used only by a visitor

* vehicles that are kept at another address or not easily accessed

The number of cars or vans in an area relates only to households. Cars or vans used by communal establishment residents are not counted.

Households with 10 to 20 cars or vans are counted as having only 10.

Households with more than 20 cars or vans were treated as invalid and a value imputed.

Variables

Population type
All usual residents in households
Area type
Lower tier local authorities
Coverage
England and Wales
Car or van availability
3 Categories
  • No cars or vans in household
  • 1 or more cars or vans in household
  • Does not apply
Method used to travel to workplace
12 Categories
  • Work mainly at or from home
  • Underground, metro, light rail, tram
  • Train
  • Bus, minibus or coach
  • Taxi
  • Motorcycle, scooter or moped
  • Driving a car or van
  • Passenger in a car or van
  • Bicycle
  • On foot
  • Other method of travel to work
  • Not in employment or aged 15 years and under
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Protecting personal data

Sometimes we need to make changes to data if it is possible to identify individuals. This is known as statistical disclosure control.

In Census 2021, we:

  • swapped records (targeted record swapping), for example, if a household was likely to be identified in datasets because it has unusual characteristics, we swapped the record with a similar one from a nearby small area (very unusual households could be swapped with one in a nearby local authority)
  • added small changes to some counts (cell key perturbation), for example, we might change a count of four to a three or a five – this might make small differences between tables depending on how the data are broken down when we applied perturbation

Read more in Section 5 of our article Design for Census 2021.

Version history

Release date Reason for update
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