Reference Period

The 2014 National Travel Survey (NTS) was included as a module to the QNHS in the three months from October to December 2014 (quarter 4). The travel reference days, i.e. the days for which travel data was collected,

covered the period October 6^th 2014 – January 4^th 2015.

Questionnaire

A copy of the questionnaire used in this module is available here: NTS questionnaire.

Individual Reference Person

This survey was asked of persons aged 18 years and over. No third party responses were permitted for the NTS survey.

Key Definitions and Descriptions

Population

This survey was asked of adults, aged 18 years and over, resident in the Republic of Ireland.

Journey

A journey is defined as a one-way course of travel from location A to location B for the purpose of carrying out a specific activity at location B. A location could be a single premise (e.g. a house, an apartment, a shop, an office, etc.) or a complex of premises (e.g. a shopping centre, a factory site, a hospital, etc.). Return trips were recorded as separate journeys. To be relevant to the survey, journeys must have:

• Commenced in the travel reference day (it may end the following day)
• Been at least 100 metres in length (approximately a one minute walk)
• Comprised exclusively of domestic travel (all stages of foreign travel were excluded)
• Not formed an integral part of a respondent’s routine employment (e.g. a milkman on his milk round, a taxi driver picking up a fare, etc.)

Journey Purpose

The purpose of a journey is governed by what action was taken at the end of the journey.

Mode of Travel

Where a journey consists of more than one mode of travel, the main mode of travel is determined by the mode of travel used for the greatest distance. In the event of there being more than one main mode of travel (i.e. when two or more modes are of equal distance), then the main mode of travel is determined by the mode of travel used for the earliest stage of the journey.

Journey Duration

This is calculated as the sum of time spent on each stage of the journey and not the difference between the start and end time of a journey.

Travel Reference Period

The travel reference period is 4am to 3:59am. This allowed the capture of information for respondents who finish work or return from leisure activities after midnight.

Travel Reference Day

To ensure that data was collected for all seven days of the week, each person participating in the NTS was assigned a selected 'travel reference day'. The travel reference day was a maximum of three days prior to the day on which the interview was conducted to ensure that recall was not compromised.

• For interviews conducted on Wednesday through to Saturday, the travel reference day was the immediately preceding day, i.e. if a person was interviewed on Friday November 21^st, the travel reference day would be Thursday November 20^th.
• For interviews conducted on Mondays a different arrangement applied. 30% of Monday interviews were assigned at random to the immediately preceding Friday, 42% to the immediately preceding Saturday and 28% to the immediately preceding Sunday. 
• For interviews conducted on Tuesdays, 17% were assigned at random to the immediately preceding Sunday and 83% were assigned to the immediately preceding Monday.

Region

The regional classification used in this release is based on the NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Units) classification used by Eurostat. The NUTS3 regions correspond to the eight Regional Authorities established under the Local Government Act, 1991 (Regional Authorities) (Establishment) Order, 1993, which came into operation on 1 January 1994. The NUTS2 regions, which were proposed by Government and agreed by Eurostat in 1999, are groupings of the NUTS3 regions. The composition of the regions is set out below.

Border Midlands and Western NUTS 2 Region

Border

Cavan

Donegal

Leitrim

Louth

Monaghan

Sligo

Midland

Laois

Longford

Offaly

Westmeath

West

Galway City

Galway County

Mayo

Roscommon

Southern and Eastern NUTS2 Region

Dublin

Dublin

Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown

Fingal

South Dublin

Mid-East

Kildare

Meath

Wicklow

Mid-West

Clare

Limerick City

Limerick County

North Tipperary

South-East

Carlow

Kilkenny

South Tipperary

Waterford City

Waterford County

Wexford

South-West

Cork City

Cork County

Kerry

Degree of Urbanisation

This classification is created from an aggregation of population density estimates derived from the Census of Population. The categories included in each aggregate are explained below:

• Thinly populated area refers to rural areas
• Intermediate density area refers to towns and suburbs
• Densely populated area refers to cities, urban centres and urban areas

Grossing Effect

The QNHS grossing procedure aligns the distribution of persons covered in the survey with independently determined population estimates at the level of sex, five year age group and region. The grossing factors applied in the processing of the NTS results were calculated in the same manner but differ from those that were used in the preparation of the main QNHS estimates as the NTS questions were asked to a sub-sample (persons aged 18 years and over and waves two to four) of the overall QNHS sample.

Note on Tables

The sum of row or column percentages in the tables in this report may not add to 100.0% due to rounding.

Respondents to the Survey

Only direct respondents aged 18 and over were included in the NTS survey (i.e. no third party responses were permitted for the NTS module).

Guide to Using NTS Results

Care should be taken when interpreting the results or when comparing them with other data sources such as POWCAR. POWCAR is the 2011 Census of Population travel to work, school and college dataset (Place Of Work Census of Anonymised Records - POWCAR). POWCAR should be used as the definitive source of data on travel to work, school and college. When comparing the NTS to POWCAR data, it should be noted that the NTS journey purpose of ‘work’ includes both commuter and business travel while the POWCAR data includes commuter travel only. The NTS collected travel data for a specific day while the Census collected travel data for the ‘usual’ journey to work, school or college. Similarly, when examining issues such as the mode share for travel to school/education, it is important to note that the NTS doesn't accurately reflect the mode share for the whole student population as the NTS only sampled persons aged 18 years and over.

Data from other international sources/surveys indicates that there can be significant seasonal variations in travel patterns. The NTS travel reference days spanned the Christmas and New Year holiday period when travel patterns may be atypical. This period also encompasses the shortest days and some of the coldest and wettest weather of the year. Estimation of survey results from data relating to only one day’s activity for a sample of journey introduces a statistical variability which would not be present if a full year’s data had been collected.

QNHS Social Modules
While the main purpose of the QNHS is the production of quarterly labour force estimates, there is also a provision for the collection of data on social topics through the inclusion of special survey modules. The selection of the major national modules undertaken to date has been largely based on the results of a canvass of users (over 100 organisations) that was conducted by the CSO in 1996, 2002, 2006, 2008 and most recently 2011. The results of the canvass are presented to the National Statistics Board and they are asked to indicate their priorities for the years ahead. The schedule for social modules in any given year is based on the following structure:

Quarter 1

Annual modules including Accidents and Illness, and Information and Communications Technology (ICT)

Quarter 2

EU module (always covered under EU legislation)

Quarter 3

National module

Quarter 4

National module

The table below outlines some of the social modules published to date in the QNHS.

Quarter  Social Module

Q3 2013 Volunteering and Wellbeing

Q2 2013 Sport and Physical Exercise

Q3 2012  Effect on Households of the Economic Downturn

Q2 2012  Retirement Planning

Q2 2012  Parental Involvement in Children’s Education

Q2 2012  Union Membership

Q1 2012  Unemployment Thematic Report

Q2 2011  Response of Households to the Economic Downturn - Pilot Module

Q2 2011  Voter Participation

Q4 2010  Equality

Q3 2010  Health Status and Health Service Utilisation

Q2 2010  Cross Border Shopping

Q2 2010  Educational Attainment

Q1 2010  Crime and Victimisation

Q4 2009  Pension Provision

Q3 2009  Carers

Q2 2009  Union Membership

Q2 2009  Cross Border Shopping

Q3 2008  Lifelong Learning

Q4 2007  Childcare

Q3 2007 Health Status and Health Service Utilisation

Q3 2006 Sport and Physical Exercise

More historical social modules published are available at:

http://www.cso.ie/en/qnhs/releasesandpublications/qnhs-specialmodules/qnhs-specialmodulesarchive/.