Annual UWE Travel Survey

Survey Details

In November 2007 700 staff and students were asked how they travelled to UWE by filling in a questionnaire (PDF, 500Kb). The numbers sent to each campus and faculty reflected their size.

With the cooperation of the Faculty Deans, students were surveyed by distribution of survey forms at the start of randomly-selected lectures to ensure a high response rate. Staff were randomly chosen from email lists, with a small additional number of staff who did not have email access (mainly cleaning and catering staff) also selected. These methods were chosen to ensure the highest possible response rate from a modest sample, reducing bias from those most likely to respond to surveys.

In order to encourage engagement, a modest prize of £50 food vouchers was offered to a randomly-selected winner.

In total 503 survey forms were returned, so overall response rate was approximately 72%.

Results

The headline results for mode share (the main method of travel used on day of survey) are as follows:

  Student % Staff % Combined %
Car (on own) 20 73 27
Car (with someone else) 10 6 9
Bus (Ulink) 19 0 16
Bus (Other) 13 3 12
Cycle 4 14 6
Walk 33 3 29
Motorcycle/Moped 1 0 1
Train 1 0 1
Other 0 0 0

Progress of Sustainable Travel

The 2007 survey is considered more accurate than previous years on account of the higher response rate and targetted sampling. It may be that previous years underestimated walking as a mode of travel to work or study; however the graph below shows an encouraging downward trend of single occupancy car travel by students.
Mode Share at UWE by year