travel to work areas in the uk - european commissionuk travel to work areas (ttwas) ttwas became the...
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Travel to Work Areas in the UK
Andy Bates
Office for National Statistics
Outline of Presentation
• overview of TTWAs in the UK
• differences between LMAs and TTWAs
• characteristics of 2011 TTWAs
• changes in TTWAs, 2001 and 2011
• UK policy interest in TTWAs
UK Travel to Work Areas (TTWAs)
TTWAs became the official British definition of local
labour market areas in the 1960s, although
their predecessors go further back in time.
Following each national census from the 1971
Census, TTWAs have been defined using
commuting flow data for workers based on their area
of residence and workplace.
Updated 2011 UK TTWAs published August 2015.
Differences between LMAs and TTWAs
LMAs TTWAs
Building block
geography
LAU2 (wards) Lower Layer SOAs (E&W)
Data Zones (Sco)
Super Output Areas (NI)
No. of areas in building
block geography
10,300 42,600
Smallest population 140 1,000
Highest population 36,400 8,300
Mean population 6,200 1,500
Using parameters: min size = 3,500
target size = 25,000
min self containment = 66.7%
target self containment = 75.0%
No. areas generated: 99 238
2011 TTWAs
Smallest Mean Largest
Economically active
population 16+
Broadford and
Kyle of Lochalsh
3,600
142,000
London
4.3m
No. of small area
building blocks
9
185
4,777
Area Hartlepool
101 km2
1,064 km2
Fort William
5,342 km2
Travel to Work Areas
Source: Alasdair Rae, University of Sheffield
Travel to Work Areas
Source: Alasdair Rae, University of Sheffield
Source: Alasdair Rae, University of Sheffield Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2016
Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2016
Reductions in TTWA numbers over time
308
243 228
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
1991 2001 2011
Number of TTWAs
• Implication - falling number and increasing size of
TTWAs, indicating longer commuting distances…
… longer commuting distances
• more people commuting further means that most
areas tend to become less self-contained, which
may be caused by a number of factors…
… factors causing longer distance commuting
• fewer jobs in traditional employment sectors eg
mining, where local working was common
• more households with 2 earners who often cannot
live near both workplaces
• more complex working patterns eg people working
part of the week at home
• more jobs at professional/managerial levels with
higher pay levels affording costly travel
• changes in method of travel to work…
… changes in method of travel to work
• modes of travel which increased the most – train
and home working, partially cancel out in their
impact on average commuting distance
• effect of this modest change is a slower decline in
number of TTWAs…
down 0.8 percentage points
up 1.1 percentage points
up 0.9 percentage points
… slower decline in number of TTWAs
308
243 228
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
1991 2001 2011
Number of TTWAs
• but changes in number and composition of
TTWAs are of great interest to policy makers…
… UK policy interest in TTWAs
• fall in number and increased size of TTWAs,
indicating longer commuting distances, is resulting
in increasing concentration of employment in
specific (often city) locations
• this has major implications for planning, housing,
transport, and economic policies and programmes
• ongoing momentum for enhanced devolution to
‘city regions’ – the functional area around a city,
and need for strategic planning
• for policy makers it is often more appropriate rather
than to use administrative geographies to instead
use functional geographies…
UK policy interest in TTWAs
• … TTWAs are therefore extremely useful as an
indicator of patterns of labour markets, and of
changes in these patterns over time
• this enables local authorities and partners to draw
important contextual conclusions for their planning
and management of labour market issues and
responsibilities