NRTS Background note

The National Rail Travel Survey is a survey of passenger trips on the National Rail system. It was designed to fill a gap in our knowledge about who uses the rail network, where, when and for what purposes. The data is essential for modelling of both multi-modal travel choices and assessing the impact of rail service options and infrastructure schemes across the whole of Great Britain. It will be a vital data source for nearly all analysis functions including franchise specification, the bidding process, Route Utilisation Strategies, model updates, scheme assessments, station catchment analysis and will provide valuable information required to undertake other policy analysis - for example in respect to social inclusion.

Starting in the South East, which was covered through the London Area Transport Survey (LATS), all stations in Great Britain have been surveyed on weekdays outside school holiday periods during the period 2000-2005. Data is collected from passengers by self-completion questionnaire, and passenger counts are carried out at the same time to give details of the volume of people using each station. This enables the survey responses to be weighted up to represent all rail passengers. About 500,000 questionnaires will be collected in total. Final outputs, which will only be available when the data from all regions are combined to form the complete database, should become available towards the end of 2006.

The questionnaire asks for details of the whole trip, including all the stations used, the access and egress modes and the origin and destination addresses and purposes. This is supported by ticketing and demographic information.

Output specifications are not yet finalised, but it is anticipated that a database of travel estimates will be able to provide data to meet requirements, subject to data confidentiality issues. The survey data will be available to DfT, Scottish Executive, National Assembly for Wales and national and local government agencies for rail planning purposes, on a similar basis to the LATS data which is already widely used on its own.

During the LATS element of the survey, 300,000 questionnaires were returned, from approximately 900 stations. This provides a good example of the information that the NRTS will provide. Key findings from LATS included:

• 65% of rail journeys starting in the South East area were for travel to London
• 72% of travel occurred during peak periods and 56% of passenger trips were made by men
• Commuting and education accounted for 68% of journeys, with 20% made for 'leisure' purposes and 12% made for business
• 50% of journeys to or from stations were made on foot, whilst cars accounted for 14%
• 20% of passengers did not have access to a car, whilst 35% were in households with 2 or more cars
• Catchment analysis showed that different stations had different catchment characteristics. For example, few passengers living close to Reading station drove there, whereas around Maidenhead station there was far more short-distance driving to the station.