Travel Behaviour Trends 2021

The National Travel Survey is a household survey that focusses primarily on the travel behaviour of respondents and prior to 2021, was most recently carried out two years previous, in 2019. In both years, it was carried out using the General Household Survey. However, in 2021, the mode of data collection changed to CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interviewing), while in 2019, face-to-face interviews were used.

When the last National Travel Survey was carried out in the fourth quarter of 2019, it was pre COVID-19. A global pandemic occurred in the intervening years between the 2019 survey and the National Travel Survey of 2021. When the survey was carried out in the fourth quarter of 2021, society and the economy had started to return to normal. Non-essential retail and hospitality had returned with certain restrictions still in place, children and older students had returned to schools, colleges and places of higher education remained open. Notwithstanding, some school closures owing to local outbreaks of COVID-19, people had started to return to work, many on a phased and/or blended working basis.

This publication is the first in a series of four publications presenting the results of the National Travel Survey (NTS), which was carried out in the fourth quarter of 2021. This publication focusses on the travel behaviour of respondents, including what days of the week they are most likely to travel and when during the day, what mode(s) of travel they choose on such journeys, their distance and duration, alternative modes of travel. The second publication in the series ‘Sustainable Mobility and Transport 2021’ will be published on 1^st July, and reports on sustainable mobility such as walking and cycling as modes of travel, and sustainable transport including public transport and electric vehicles, and the facilitators and inhibitors to these modes of transport. The third publication in the series ‘Passenger Mobility and Road Safety 2021’ will be published on 8^th July, and will focus on road collisions and road safety. The fourth and final publication ‘Impact of COVID-19 on Travel Behaviour’ will concentrate on how COVID-19 has impacted our travel behaviour, and will be published on 19^th July.

The NTS results will be used to compile statistical indicators across a broad spectrum, including for journey purpose and modes of travel, which will help monitor the implementation of existing transport policy and will inform future transport initiatives. This report presents the results for 2021 with comparative analysis where applicable for 2016 and 2019.

It is internationally accepted that the most comprehensive method to collect data on travel behaviour is to have respondents complete a seven-day travel diary. However, to reduce respondent burden and increase response rates, many countries have adopted an alternative method of collecting data for a 24-hour period. 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.

Only travel within the island of Ireland, made by residents of the State, was included in the survey. While the NTS collected information on work-related travel for most occupations, it excluded the business-related travel of professional drivers (e.g. bus and taxi drivers) and other occupations where travel is integral to the role (e.g. postal delivery workers). It is important to note, when interpreting the figures and comparing them to other data sources, that the NTS journey purpose of 'work' includes both commuter and business travel.

The NTS survey data is collected from individuals in private households aged 18 years and over. Data on travel behaviour is collected from just one person per household. Institutional households, (e.g. nursing homes, barracks, boarding schools, hotels, etc.) are not covered by the survey.

As all estimates from sample surveys are subject to a margin of error, the 2016 Census of Population travel to work, school, and college dataset (Place of Work, School or College Census of Anonymised Records - POWSCAR) should be used as the definitive source of data on travel to work, school, and college. It is also worth noting that the results contained in this publication are based on travel patterns for a particular quarter, which may not be fully representative of the year as a whole. Therefore, particular care should be taken when interpreting the results, especially if extrapolating them to annualised results. For further guidelines on using the NTS data, please refer to the Background Notes.

View Tables on PxStat

• In 2021, over three quarters (76.8%) of persons aged 18 years and over took a trip on the travel reference day. Of those who did not, over one in ten (10.6%) were working from home, while over half (54.4%) said that they were fully occupied with home duties or had no need or wish to travel outside the home. See tables 6.1 and 6.2.
• Although the most common mode of travel is private car, journeys by car (whether as driver or passenger) have decreased by three percentage points on the same period in 2019 – 70.7% of journeys compared with 73.7% in 2019. Trips where the respondent was the driver accounted for 63.7% of all journeys, compared with 64.9% in 2019. Similarly, less than one in thirteen (7%) of all journeys taken were by car as passenger, compared with 8.8% in the same period in 2019. See Table 2.1.
• The use of public transport decreased in 2021 - journeys taken by bus were down from 4.8% in 2019 to 4.3% in 2021, while rail/DART/Luas journeys accounted for 1.2% of all journeys, compared with 1.7% in 2019. See Table 2.1.
• Active travel, such as walking and cycling, increased in 2021. The percentage of trips where the main mode of travel was walking, increased by over three percentage points on the same period in 2019 - one in six (16.9%) of all journeys made in 2021, compared with 13.5% of journeys taken in the same period in 2019. Cycling journeys also increased – 2.2% of all journeys made were by bicycle in 2021, compared with 1.5% in 2019. See Table 2.1.
• Trips to visit friends or family and trips for the purpose of entertainment/leisure/sport both decreased in 2021. Only one in sixteen (6.4%) of journeys were visits to friends or family, down four percentage points on the same period in 2019 (10.4%). Meanwhile, less than one in twelve (7.8%) of journeys were for the purpose of entertainment/leisure/ sports, compared with 9.3% in 2019.  See Table 3.1.
• As in 2019, Tuesday was the busiest day of the week in 2021 and the weekend was the least busiest - over one quarter (26.1%) of all journeys taken in 2021, compared with 24.6% in the same period in 2019. Journeys taken on Saturdays accounted for one in sixteen (6.2%) of all journeys taken (5.8% in 2019), while trips made on Sundays accounted for over one in fifteen (6.7%) the same as in 2019. See Table 4.4.
• In 2021, the busiest time for taking journeys was between 16:00 and 18:59, as was the case in 2019 - nearly one quarter (23.9%) of all journeys taken were during this time period in 2021, compared with 22.5% in the same period in 2019. See Table 4.1.