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