In 2024, the average number of trips taken by people over 18 years was 3.0. Tuesday was the busiest day of the week for taking a journey, and the weekend was the least busy.
The busiest time for taking journeys was between 4pm and 7pm with almost half (45.0%) of journeys taken during this time being for work-related purposes.
The second busiest time was in the morning between 7am and 10am (21.9% of all journeys).
Journeys taken between midnight and 7am doubled since the survey was last carried out in 2021 – 7.4% compared with 3.7% of journeys in 2021. Analysis of time of departure by the main purpose for the journey shows that over one-third (34.8%) of trips taken during this time were for work-related purposes (See Figure 4.1 and Tables 4.1, 4.2, & 4.3).
The degree of urbanisation had relatively little impact on the time of departure of journeys in 2024. The pattern of travel based on time of journey was relatively similar across all population density area types. However, for people residing in thinly populated areas, less than one in ten (9.7%) of journeys were between 7pm and midnight, compared with one in eight for people residing in densely (11.9%) and intermediate (12.1%) density populated areas (See Table 4.4).
Over three in ten (30.5%) trips taken by older people aged 75 plus were between 10 in the morning and lunchtime, while their least busy time for making journeys was the 12-hour period between 7pm and 7am when just one in twenty (10.1%) took trips. By comparison, almost one in five (19.8%) of trips made by younger people aged 18 to 24 years were between 7pm and midnight. Their busiest time was between 4pm in the afternoon and 7pm in the evening (23.9%) (See Figure 4.2 and Table 4.5).
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