Collection

Public attitudes towards transport

Statistics about public attitudes towards transport and their opinions.

From:
Department for Transport
Published
4 July 2013
Last updated
23 February 2023 — See all updates

Public attitudes towards motorcycles

Public attitudes towards buses

For more data and statistics around buses, please consult the main bus statistics collection page.

Public attitudes towards train services

For more data and statistics on national rail services, please consult the main rail statistics page.

Public attitudes towards air travel

For more data and statistics on aviation, UK airports, and the air passenger experience survey, please consult the main aviation statistics page.

Public attitudes towards electric transport modes and climate change

More information on electric charge point use and greenhouse gas emissions can be found on the transport energy and environmental statistics page.

Public attitudes towards other transport modes

Responses to surveys about other transport modes include micro transport are below. For an archive of transport questions which have been asked in smaller transport surveys, please consult the Transport Survey Question Bank.

More information on other questions and surveys that have been conducted can be found on the UK Data Service website Question and Variable Bank.

British Social Attitudes survey (2002 to 2018)

The British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey is NatCen’s longest running survey, being carried out annually since 1983. More details can be found at the dedicated BSA website.

The department included transport related questions as part of the BSA between 2002 and 2018, with the final year being a cut-down set of questions. From 2019 onwards, many of these questions are included in the National Transport Attitudes Study (NTAS).

Data from the ONS ‘Opinions’ survey, the ‘British social attitudes survey’ and the NatCen omnibus are available from the UK Data Service.

About the public attitudes towards transport reports

DfT has used random probability omnibus surveys run by the ONS and NatCen to measure people’s attitudes to various transport-related issues, and their experiences of different forms of transport.

Separately, the department has also used the British Social Attitudes survey (managed by NatCen) to monitor public attitudes over the long term.

Omnibus surveys are operated by a number of social research providers. They allow clients to buy space in a ‘rolling’ public survey to ask a small set of questions for a limited time period. An omnibus survey will typically feature a standard set of core questions that are of interest to all clients (covering personal and household characteristics), alongside topic-specific questions funded by individual clients. They are therefore a low-cost and flexible method of running small-scale public surveys.

Omnibus surveys use stratified sampling techniques and are usually weighted to ensure that results are representative of the population at large. Both the NatCen and ONS omnibus surveys use random probability sampling (without replacement) and are conducted ‘face-to-face’ at the respondent’s household using computer assisted personal interviewing (CAPI).

The attitudinal statistics collected using the ONS ‘Opinions’ omnibus survey are Official Statistics and are produced in line with the relevant code of practice. The department’s view is that all statistics which are not designated as National Statistics are robust and have been produced to a suitable standard.

Indeed, the ONS ‘Opinions’ survey methodology is comparable to that of other ONS surveys whose results are published as National Statistics. However, DfT reports from this survey have not been put forward for National Statistics assessment.

Updates to this page

Published 4 July 2013
Last updated 23 February 2023 + show all updates

  1. National Travel Attitudes Study, Wave 7 added to collection.

  2. National Travel Attitudes Study, Wave 6 report added.

  3. National Travel Attitudes Study, Wave 5 report added to the collection.

  4. NTAS Wave 4 final report and pre-release access for NTAS added to collection.

  5. National Travel Attitudes Study, Wave 4 provisional report added to the collection. Data set on motorcycles (ATT06) added to collection.

  6. National Travel Attitudes Study: Wave 3 added to collection.

  7. We have added "National Travel Attitudes Study - Wave 2" to the collection page.

  8. New release published.

  9. New release published.

  10. New release published.

  11. New release published.

  12. New release published.

  13. New release published.

  14. Public attitudes towards electric vehicles: February 2015

  15. First published.

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