Another problem is that for local level flows (within the same local authority) it would be almost impossible to distinguish commuters and other phone users. School students would present a particular problem in this regard, as they have temporal structures (when they are at home, and when they are at school) that are quite similar to commuters. Can we just ignore data for which the daytime location is a school? No – because then we’d exclude school employees as well. Again, we are faced with spain rcs data the problem that without individual level characteristics, these data pose many problems.
Can we just ignore local level flows? : intra-area flows are hugely important. They’re short distance thus exactly the ones one might hope to convert from motorised to active commute – so it would be necessary to understand the modal split accurately for these people – but they also account for a large number of persons. Data from 2011 show that 52% of journeys to work in England and Wales occur within the same local authority.
Despite these concerns it is useful that ONS have carried out these tests. The data look promising for certain types of commuters and it is assumed that the methodology will improve. The traditional census form is also not ideal for capturing information on journeys to work. Space is constrained on any paper-based form (and overall completion time is an important constraint for online forms) so only a single question is asked about the journey to work (coupled with questions about the location of the workplace) further questions would be required to identify for example, additional transport modes used or about commute times and intermediate destinations.