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Greater Manchester Travel Diary Survey

The Greater Manchester Travel Diary Survey (TRADS) collects transport and travel information from all residents of 2,000 households per year, gathering data regarding all trips made by each resident 5 years of age or older in a 24-hour period.

The survey sample is designed so that each GM district is represented proportionately, based upon the demographics of the resident population. The survey programme covers the duration of a full year, with surveys in-field every day.

Data is collected on about 10,000 trips, made by 4,500 residents of 2,000 GM households each year. The information gathered includes trip origins and destinations, travel times, transport modes used and journey purpose.

The information is used primarily by TfGM for the purpose of developing and monitoring transport policy, strategy, schemes and interventions.

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Travel Diary Survey 2024

The latest findings are available in our TRADS 2024 Report.

Purpose of the report

This document provides a picture of the travel behaviour of Greater Manchester (GM) residents in 2024. Some recent trends are presented to help place 2024 data in context.

The main dataset underpinning this document is the Greater Manchester Travel Diary Survey (TRADS). TRADS provides a comprehensive picture of the travel of GM residents, but it has some limitations. For example, the fact that TRADS has been designed to capture a ‘typical day’ means that it is not suited to exploring seasonal trends. More information about TRADS is provided in the Appendix.

This document excludes travel by non-residents in GM and does not address policy interventions needed to achieve the 2040 Right Mix (see Glossary for definition). For policy and delivery proposals, refer to the GM Transport Strategy 2050, the Transport Delivery Plan and associated evidence reports.

At the time of writing, draft versions of these documents were open for public consultation.

Read our current adopted strategy and delivery plan documents.

Key highlights from the 2024 report

How many trips did GM residents make?

  • There were 5.9 million trips by GM residents on a typical day in 2024, slightly above the 2016-2018 peak of 5.8 million.
  • Over a quarter of GM residents did not travel on a typical day.
  • GM residents travelled 33 million kilometres on a typical day (similar to pre-pandemic levels). This indicates that while residents made fewer trips per person in 2024 than pre-pandemic years, the trips they did make were slightly longer on average.

How did GM residents travel?

  • Car remains the dominant way of travelling, accounting for nearly 60% of all trips by GM residents, and around three-quarters of the distance travelled. The car share of total distance travelled by GM residents (73%) was slightly down on pre-pandemic levels (77%). Walking accounted for 30% of the trips by GM residents, but only 4% of the distance. Public transport accounted for 7% of the trips, and 17% of the distance.
  • 15% of car trips were 1km or less, equating to about 185 million annual car journeys by GM residents. These could have been walked in around 15 minutes or cycled in around 4 minutes.
  • City-to-City car trips to/from outside of GM accounted for just 5% of all car trips by GM residents, but 39% of the total distance travelled by GM residents in cars.
  • A small proportion of frequent users generated most trips across all types of public transport. In the case of bus, over 75% of trips were made by just 11% of GM residents (ie those who used the bus at least three or four days a week).
  • Our least affluent (‘Stretched Society’ and ‘Low Income Living’) residents accounted for 69% of all bus trips made by GM residents, despite only representing 45% of the GM resident population.

Why did GM residents travel?

  • Shopping (20%), education - including escort - (19%), and commuting and business (17%) were the three most common trip purposes.
  • Collectively, commuting and business, and ’other’ (eg visiting friends, personal business) accounted for two thirds of the total distance travelled by GM residents.
  • A third of all person km travelled were accounted for by the commuting and business category, but the total distance travelled for this purpose was down by over 20% compared to 2016-18 levels.

When did GM residents travel?

  • GM residents started nearly nine-in-ten of their trips (86%) in the 12 hours between 7am and 7pm, while 8% of their trips started between 7pm and 10pm. Only 10% of trips started between 8pm and 7am, of which 64% were by private vehicle (compared to 59% outside these hours).
  • The peak periods for trip making were 8am-9am and 3pm-4pm, accounting for nearly a quarter of all trips by GM residents. During these hours, over half of trips were for education.
  • Around three-in-ten trips by GM residents in the periods 7am-9am and 4pm-6pm were to/from work/business. 50% of all GM resident commuting and business trips were made outside these periods.

Car availability in Greater Manchester

  • Between 2011 and 2021, the number of licensed, privately kept cars in GM grew by 13%, exceeding the 7% growth in the GM population.
  • Private car keeping on a per head basis had been increasing in GM until 2022. At the end of 2024, there were well over 1.2m licensed cars or vans being kept privately in GM, which equated to roughly one car per two residents aged 17 or over.
  • 25% of households had no access to a car/van, rising to around half in the least affluent households, as classified by Acorn, while for the most affluent households it can be expected that they will nearly always have a car/van available.
  • Residents in households with no cars were seven times more likely to use a bus for their journeys than residents in households where there was at least one car per adult.
  • Residents with no cars or vans in their households made 87% of their trips by active travel or public transport. While in households where there were fewer cars than adults, 36% of trips were by active travel or public transport. In households where there was at least one car per adult, only 27% of trips were by active travel or public transport.

Further information

TRADS 2024 district summaries

TRADS 2023 district summaries

TRADS 2022 district summaries

For more information regarding TRADS or for further analysis, please contact insight@tfgm.com.

Documents