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Section 2 “How long does the Journey take?”

This Section deals with the time taken for the journey to work and compares the journeys to and from work.

The Journey to work

It will be seen that for a considerable proportion of the sample the journey to work now takes longer than in August, 1942. 29% of the sample take over half an hour against 22% in August, and 23% now take less than 15 minutes against nearly 39% in August. A further analysis which may prove more convenient is given below:-

It will be seen that longer intervals put many more people into the shortest category and that a substantial part of the “over half an hour” journeys are between 41 - 80 minutes.

There are few differences between men and women or the different age groups except that the 20 - 45 age group has rather more with “over half an hour” journeys than either the under 20s or the over 45s.

There are some differences in the time taken according to the location of the place of work, but the importance of this factor is reduced by the fact that many people work away from their residential area.

Only half as many workers in places of work on the outskirts of towns have “under 15 minutes” journey as workers in the centre or inner town areas and some 37% of outer area workers have “over half an hour” journeys against 29% of the inner area and 25% of the centre area workers.

The occupations with greatest proportion of “over half an hour” journey are Heavy Manufacture, Light Engineering and Munitions, Building and Clerical.

The Clerical section have roughly the same proportion with “over half an hour” journeys as in August, 1942, but there is an increase in proportions with long journeys in Heavy Manufacture, Light Engineering and Munition Manufacture and Building.

Both Heavy Manufacture and Munition Manufacture are now making greater use of public transport than in August, 1942. The increase in the number of Building workers making longer journeys cannot however be explained in this way.

As in August, 1942 the occupations where the greatest number have “under half an hour” journeys are mining and transport and public utility.

The regional differences are, of course, a reflection of the differences noted above. The greatest number of “under half an hour” journeys are in North, North West, North Midlands and East Anglia. The greatest number of “over half an hour” journeys are in London, South Wales, South West, N. East and Scotland; whilst in London, South Wales, South West and North East, there are considerable proportions with journeys over 40 minutes.

The sharpest differences, except for shortest journeys, are between the largest towns and the others. It is probable that transport in such large towns by its complexity becomes rather a different problem. It will be noted that there is a slight change of tendency in the smallest towns where the proportion with “over half an hour” journeys is nearly 23%. This is probably due to the number of work people in these towns using trains or other transport to come into the town as noted above.

The Journey Home

Work-people were asked both the time taken getting to work and getting home. A comparison of these journeys shows that for a considerable proportion of the working population the homeward journey takes more time.

Nearly 30% of the working population take longer getting home than getting to work whilst 8% have shorter homeward journeys. In the largest towns there are 35% with longer journeys.

The regions where the greatest number of work-people take more time getting home are S. West, Scotland, North West, Midlands, N. East and S. Wales and of these S. West has the greatest number with the homeward journey taking over 10 minutes longer. In most regions the numbers taking over 10 minutes longer to get to work are small.

No information is available from the survey on the reasons for these longer journeys to work. The material given above is derived from a comparison of time taken to and from work since it was thought that opinions on this question would not be very revealing. It is of course true that homeward journeys were at the time of the survey for the most part made during blackout-hours and the regional figures given may indicate the extent to which local transport organisations meet the extra difficulties of operating under blackout conditions. It will be remembered from Table 3 that in N. East, Scotland and S. Wales, intensive use was made of public transport.

Despite the fact that a considerable proportion of the sample had longer journeys home very few used different routes or methods on the homeward journey.

The different route or method was, for the most part, not due to the journey to work involving many changes since 80% of those using a different route did not change going to work. Much the largest reason for the change was the different transport service available for the homeward journey.

Walkers and Cyclists

Compared with August, 1942 the January figures show a substantial drop in the number of work-people cycling to work, (Table 1) and no information is available as to the time of journeys made by cyclists at any other time of the year. The present figures indicate, however, that 40% of cyclists have journeys to work of “under 15 minutes” compared with 23% of the whole sample.

The walkers’ journeys during January were rather shorter. Some 56% of walkers had journeys “under 15 minutes”.