Greater Manchester Travel Diary Surveys

The Greater Manchester Travel Diary Surveys (TRADS) collects transport and travel information from all residents of 2,000 households per year; gathering data regarding all trips made by each resident over 4 years of age 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 7,000 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 Surveys 2022 - Summary

The latest findings are available in our TRADS 2022 Summary Report.

Purpose of the summary report

This summary report provides a picture of the travel behaviour of Greater Manchester (GM) residents in 2022, it does not cover all travel in GM as it does not include the travel of non-residents. Some recent trends are presented to help place the 2022 data in context.

This document does not consider what policy interventions are needed to achieve the 2040 Right Mix - our vision to improve our transport system so that we can reduce car use to no more than 50% of daily trips, with the remaining 50% made by public transport, walking and cycling, while ensuring there is no increase in overall motor-vehicle traffic in GM.

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 has some limitations. For example, the nature of the TRADS survey means that it is not suited to exploring seasonal trends. We intend to publish a more comprehensive ‘Travel in GM’ in the second half of 2024 that will utilise additional datasets to those referred to in this document.

More information about TRADS is provided in the report's Appendix.

Key highlights from the 2022 report

How many trips did GM residents make?

• There were 4.9 million trips by GM residents on a typical day, 15% below pre-pandemic levels.
• A third of GM residents did not travel on a typical day.
• GM residents travelled 30 million kilometres on a typical day, which was only 7% below pre-pandemic levels. This indicates that whilst residents made fewer trips in 2022 than pre-pandemic, the trips they did make were longer on average.

How did GM residents travel?

• Car was the dominant mode, accounting for nearly 60% of all trips, and over 80% of the distance travelled. Walking accounted for 30% of the trips but only 4% of the distance. Public transport accounted for 7% of the trips, and 12% of the distance. The car share of total distance travelled by GM residents (81%) was slightly higher than pre-pandemic (77%).
• 15% of car trips were 1km or less. This equated to about 150 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 accounted for just 6% of all car trips made by GM residents, but around half of the total distance travelled by GM residents in cars.
• A small proportion of frequent users generated most trips across all public transport modes. For bus, 84% of trips were made by just 10% of GM residents (those who use the bus at least three or four days a week).
• More deprived residents were more likely to travel by bus, taxi, or minicab.

Why did GM residents travel?

• Shopping, education (including escort) and commuting or business were the three most common trip purposes, each making up around a fifth of trips.
• Collectively ‘commuting or business’ and ’other’ (which includes visiting friends, personal business) accounted for nearly three-quarters of the total distance travelled by GM residents.
• Commuting and business trips’ share of the total distance travelled has declined compared to pre-pandemic, but it still accounted for over a third of all distance travelled by GM residents.
• Shopping trips’ share of the total distance travelled also declined over this period from 12% to 8%.
  •- The group of trips classed as ‘other’ (which includes visiting friends, and personal business) was the only journey purpose to have increased its share of the total distance travelled, rising from 30% to 38% (between 2017-19 and 2022).

When did GM residents travel?

• GM residents started nearly nine-in-ten of their trips (88%) in the 12 hours between 7am and 7pm, 7% of their trips started between 7pm and 10pm. Only 5% of trips were made at night (between 8pm and 7am), of which 70% were by private vehicle (compared to 60% outside of these hours).
• The peak periods for trip making were 8am to 9am and 3pm to 4pm, accounting for over a quarter of all trips by GM residents. During these hours almost 60% of trips were for education.
• Around a third of trips by GM residents in the periods 7am to 9am, and 5pm to 7pm were to / from work. Over 50% of commuting trips were made outside of these times.

Car availability in GM

• Private car keeping is high in GM and has been increasing. In 2022 there were well over 1.1m cars being kept privately in GM, which equated to roughly one car for every two residents aged 17 or over.
• 27% of households had no access to a car, rising to 40% in our most deprived households. The most deprived households were four-times more likely to have no access to a car than the least deprived households.
• Residents in households with no cars were nine 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 in their households made 83% of their trips by active travel or public transport. In households where there were fewer cars than adults 36% of their trips were by active travel or public transport. In households where there was at least one car for every adult only 26% of their trips were by active travel or public transport.
• Between 2011 and 2021 the number of registered private cars in Greater Manchester grew by 13%, exceeding the 7% growth in the GM population.

Further information

TRADS district summaries.

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

Documents

• TRADS 2022 Summary Report
• TRADS summary report 2022 (tables)
• 2022 Technical Report
• 2021 Technical Report
• 2019 Technical Report
• 2018 Technical Report
• 2017 Technical Report
• 2016 Technical Report
• TRADS - approach to weighting from 2020
• TfGM TRADS expansion note - to 2019