Mnemonic: transport_to_workplace
Applicability: Person
Type: Derived variable
Definition
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.
Classification
Total number of categories: 12
| Code | Name |
|---|---|
| 1 | Work mainly at or from home |
| 2 | Underground, metro, light rail, tram |
| 3 | Train |
| 4 | Bus, minibus or coach |
| 5 | Taxi |
| 6 | Motorcycle, scooter or moped |
| 7 | Driving a car or van |
| 8 | Passenger in a car or van |
| 9 | Bicycle |
| 10 | On foot |
| 11 | Other method of travel to work |
| 12 | Not in employment or aged 15 years and under |
View all method of travel to workplace classifications.
Quality information
As Census 2021 was during a unique period of rapid change, take care when using Travel to Work 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 in our Travel to work quality information for Census 2021 methodology.
Background
Read about how we developed and tested the questions for Census 2021.
Comparability with the 2011 Census
Not comparable
It is difficult to compare this variable with the 2011 Census because Census 2021 took place during a national lockdown. The government advice at the time was for people to work from home (if they can) and avoid public transport.
People who were furloughed (about 5.6 million) were advised to answer the transport to work question based on their previous travel patterns before or during the pandemic. This means that the data does not accurately represent what they were doing on Census Day. This variable cannot be directly compared with the 2011 Census Travel to Work data as it does not include people who were travelling to work on that day. It may however, be partially compared with bespoke tables from 2011.
What does not comparable mean?
A variable that is not comparable means that it cannot be compared with a variable from the 2011 Census.
England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland comparisons
Broadly comparable
The variable for Scotland includes those who travel for study as well as work.
What does broadly comparable mean?
A variable that is broadly comparable means that outputs from Census 2021 in England and Wales can generally be compared with Scotland and Northern Ireland. Differences in how the data were collected or presented may reduce the ability to fully harmonise on outputs, but some harmonisation is still expected.
Find out more about variables produced for Census 2021 in Northern Ireland and Census 2022 in Scotland.
Census 2021 data that uses this variable
We use variables from Census 2021 data to show findings in different ways.
You can:
- get the method of travel to workplace dataset
- view method of travel to workplace data on a map
- view method of travel to workplace data for an area on Nomis (an Office for National Statistics service)
Alternatively, you can also create a custom dataset.
Other datasets that use this variable
- Method used to travel to work by age
- Method used to travel to work by car or van availability
- Method used to travel to work by distance travelled to work
- Method used to travel to work by industry
- Method used to travel to work by occupation
- Travel to work (parishes)
- Cornish national identity by age by sex by method of travel to work (2001 specification)
- Kashmiri ethnic group by age by sex by method of travel to work (2001 specification)
- Nepali (includes Gurkha) ethnic group by age by sex by method of travel to work (2001 specification)
- Ravidassia religion, ethnic group and both religion and ethnic group by age by sex by method of travel to work (2001 specification)
- Sikh religion, ethnic group and both religion and ethnic group by age by sex by method of travel to work (2001 specification)
- Jain religion, ethnic group and both religion and ethnic group by age by sex by method of travel to work (2001 specification)
- Workday population by method used to travel to work
- Workplace population by method used to travel to work (2001 specification)
- Workplace population by method used to travel to work (2001 specification) by age
- Workplace population by method used to travel to work (2001 specification) by distance travelled to work
- Location of usual residence and place of work by method of travel to work (Middle layer Super Output Areas)
- Location of usual residence and place of work by method of travel to work (Output Areas)
- Location of usual residence and place of work by method of travel to work by sex by age
- Location of usual residence and place of work by method of travel to work by sex by student employment status