Credit: John Linton/Sustrans
“There was this really good job that was paying me way more than where I’m working now… The fact is, the bus system don’t even run early in the morning… it was really emotional… I couldn’t get to that job.”
This quote is typical of how many young people are frustrated about how transport limits the opportunities available to them.
UWE and Sustrans have just published a report which reveals how young people in England and Wales use and experience the transport system and the barriers that exist for meeting their travel needs. It is the culmination of a three-year project called Transport to Thrive which aimed to make the policy case for transport that better enables young people aged 16-24 to make journeys and reach opportunities that help them to thrive. The project was funded by the Health Foundation as part of its Young people’s future health inquiry.
Our report presents new analyses of national travel data, combined with insights from in-depth interviews with young people leaving school and college.
We found young people aged 16-24 make 14% fewer trips compared to the population average and 21% fewer trips compared to working age adults of 25-64 years. The gaps in trip making have widened in the last 20 years with 16-24 year olds making 7% fewer trips per year than the population average in 2002 and the difference widening to 14% by 2019.
Trend in average annual number of trips (source: NTS data for England for 2002-19).
The situation in 2021 (where the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic was still present) is even more stark with 16-24 year olds making 29% fewer trips per year than the population average. Young people’s mobility was acutely affected by the pandemic and it remains to be seen how far it has recovered since then.
Availability and cost of transport are the two main barriers to travel for young people. Interviews revealed multiple instances where young people were unable to pursue opportunities, such as work experience or a better job, due to a lack of transport options and the cost of travel. National travel data showed 16–24-year-olds without car access are 2.1 times more likely to have a low level of trip making compared to 16–24-year-olds who are the main driver of car. It also showed young people from households with the lowest income quintile are 1.4 times more likely to have a low level of mobility (compared to highest income quintile households).
With only 40% of young people aged 16-24 having a full driving licence in comparison to 74% of adults aged 16 or over, young people are more likely to travel using a range of transport options including public transport, walking, cycling and new shared mobility option such as e-scooters. The interviews highlighted how walking and public transport provide access to valuable opportunities that shaped young people’s aspirations and built their knowledge and skills.
“The public bus is really important to me because if it didn’t exist I don’t think I’d have gone to the high school and sixth form that I went to… it pretty much set me up to getting into uni as well.”
However, young people expressed frustration in their interviews with the lack of control they had over their mobility. This is where cycling offers potential advantages over other transport options but has low take-up. Young people highlight lack of access to cycles and lack of safe cycle routes as barriers to cycling.
Credit: Kois Miah/Sustrans
What is clear is that young people contribute less to transport carbon emissions than other age groups, as well as being likely to see the most adverse effects of future climate change. Many young people state they wish to use cars less in the future because of concerns about climate change. A survey in November 2022 for the Department for Transport found 49% of 16-24 year olds agreed ‘In future, I am willing to use cars less to reduce my contribution to climate change’ compared to 42% across all age groups.
The evidence in the report is the basis for a set of policy recommendations to meet the transport needs of young people. These aim to give young people genuine transport choices to ensure transport no longer holds them back. The starting point is a call on local and national governments to better recognise the needs of young people by giving them a voice in the decisions that affect how they travel.
Other recommendations include:
- Providing long term dedicated investment for walking, cycling and public transport.
- Devolving powers to local transport authorities to take greater control of buses.
- Providing financial support for young people to buy a cycle.
To conclude it is essential that we better meet the transport needs of young people and other disadvantaged groups. At the heart of this is improving active travel and public transport in parallel to support multi-modal, low car lifestyles. Improving transport for 16–24-year-olds will support social and economic outcomes for the next generation of leaders and for society as a whole.
The blog was written by Prof Kiron Chatterjee (Professor of Travel Behaviour at CTS) who worked on the Transport to Thrive project with Dr Sarah Collings (Senior Research Fellow in Transport and Young People at CTS) and Dr Andy Cope (Director of Evidence and Insight at Sustrans).
Kiron Chatterjee is Professor of Travel Behaviour in CTS at UWE Bristol. His research looks at how travel behaviour changes over time, whether at an individual or societal level, and the influence on this of transport systems and social, economic and technological change. In recent years, his attention has also been on how people’s access to transport affects their life opportunities and wellbeing. He led the influential evidence review for the Department for Transport, published in 2018, on reasons for the decline in car driving of young people.