Travel Behaviour and Individual Responsibility

THIS ISSUE OF LTT magazine (LTT921) examines the latest data on travel behaviour just published from the National Travel Survey. It also includes reports on a number of other areas where travel behaviour is under the spotlight for its implications beyond the conventional dimensions principally explored by the NTS.

This seems a useful prompt to consider the wider topic of personal travel activity and its implications beyond the individual undertaking it - for example, its impact on other people, society more generally, and on the planet.

Until the invention of the steam power and then the internal combustion engine, most travel was relatively benign — undertaken on foot, horseback (for those who could afford one), or in human or animal powered vehicles. The external consequences were in some respects significant (the ‘manure problem’ comes to mind), but were not directly imposing one set of people’s behaviour on another, or on society generally. That consequence certainly became the case with the invention of coal and petrol powered vehicles, fuelling a massive expansion in travel, though available disproportionately amongst different parts of the population. Another paradigm-changing dimension was added with the arrival of air transport.

Whilst recognising the massive extension of opportunity and freedom to move around the technological revolution brought, travel and transport activity has since delivered a significant footprint that is often far from benign. The aggregated effect of these externalities is, of course, now well embraced in planning and appraisal processes, and the various equations used to analyse net benefits of both existing transport activity and that which will be associated with proposed new projects.

But within those broad-brush calculations lie a multiplicity of individual decisions and impacts, perhaps not carefully enough examined for either their specific contribution to transport’s downsides, or to whom these are properly attributed. That leaves a big gap in how the consequences can be addressed in measures to shape more societally acceptable individual behaviours.

At the macro level, there will be within the NTS data some patterns and trends more dominated by specific groups of people than the average figures published suggest. For example, the NTS 2024 data release shows that average trips per person remained at 922, while annual per person mileage was 6,082 miles on average and time spent travelling was 362 hours, around 1 hour a day. Car (driver and passenger) travel made up 59% of trips, and 76% of distance travelled, on average in 2024.

We know that overall, females made more car trips than males and that males made longer car trips on average. But within the detail there will obviously be some people whose travel activity ( and footprint) is particularly extensive, and others where it is relatively small. Do we know that much about who these kinds of people are?

For example, whilst average walking distance travelled was the highest on record since 2002 at 230 miles per person, many people will have not walked anything like as far as that. At the demographic categories level, females of all ages made more walking trips on average and walked a greater distance than males, with the age group 30 to 39 making the most walking trips with 355 trips per person. But here, once again, there will be much variation within that category.

Delving further into this is a new report from policy think tank IPPR, which we also report in this issue. It says, for instance, that growing emissions inequality is driven by the largely unrestricted mobility of affluent groups, who travel six times further a year on average than those on the lowest incomes. The richest 4 per cent are on track to emit 22 times more carbon from their travel than the poorest in coming decade, the IPPR report says.

It argues that current policy not only risks missing climate targets, but will lock in worsening ‘emissions inequality’. Without reforming transport taxes, investing in public transport, and cutting excess flying, IPPR believes that domestic travel emissions inequality is set to worsen dramatically over the next decade, despite overall emissions falling.

The richest 4 per cent of UK households are on course to emit 13 times more carbon than the poorest 14 per cent from their domestic travel by 2035 – up from a tenfold gap today, IPPR forecasts. If you include international travel, the richest are expected to emit 22 times more than the poorest – up from 20 times today.

The think tank actually finds that the poorest in society are on track to cut their emissions the quickest, and the wealthiest will remain the highest emitters in absolute terms, despite their ability to afford new electric vehicles (EVs). Additionally, while the wealthiest will benefit from lower transport costs due to cheaper EV running costs, the lowest income groups face rising costs as public transport fares continue to increase.

IPPR’s suggested alternative pathway would target what it calls ‘excess car use’ and domestic flying among the wealthiest, while expanding public transport and active travel options for all. Crucially, it also calls for reducing the need to travel by improving access to jobs, services, and amenities locally, especially for those currently locked into car dependency.

The richest 4 per cent of UK households are on course to emit 13 times more carbon than the poorest 14 per cent from their domestic travel by 2035 – up from a tenfold gap today, IPPR forecasts. If you include international travel, the richest are expected to emit 22 times more than the poorest – up from 20 times today.

Most significantly, it seeks to place greater responsibility on those who contribute most to emissions and have the greatest resources to change their travel habits. This will ensure that climate action benefits everyone, argues IPPR.

To successfully go down such a policy path would seem to need an even greater understanding of the specific impacts of particular individual travel behaviours, and an analysis of who are most responsible for them. Then it could be more clearly set out what a revised policy would mean for more sustainable travel behaviour across the population as a whole.

Indeed, this is the sort of work expected of bodies like the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) and the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) in examining more direct government interventions in matters such as tax and benefits policy. Why not similar work for transport policy impacts too?

Two other dimensions must also be of continuing interest in respect of travel behaviour, its individual make up and effects. These concern changing patterns of activity and their footprint, brought by technological and social change, and some specific elements of more overt ‘anti-social’ behaviour to be seen amongst travel and transport users.

In the first case, areas of insight might include the issue of food miles, i.e. the distance food travels from farming and production to the consumer’s plate, and the consequence in carbon emissions and pollution from the transportation, which contribute to climate change. What kind of people drive these miles up? High food miles are directly linked to a larger carbon footprint and often generated by particular lifestyles or consumer behaviours and expectations. Putting more focus on locally sourced and seasonal foods can reduce these negative impacts by lowering transportation distances and associated environmental costs, but need to be linked to greater education and awareness of the downsides of current behaviours.

A similar equation has been generated by the switch from traditional retail and shopping to an explosion of on-line purchases and consequent transport-intensive system of home delivery. Once again the causes and impacts are not evenly spread across populations either domestically, or around the world.

The growth of online shopping and home delivery, with a rise in unsustainable consumer behaviours like impulse buying, creates negative impacts including increased carbon emissions from transportation and excessive packaging and waste, with a surge in consumption and product returns that further pollute and contribute to landfills,. Studies have attempted to quantify the climate change consequences: for instance on-line returns alone caused an estimated 24 million metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2022 said CleanHub in a report in March 2024. Shipping emission is another online shopping environmental impact to consider. The transport of goods across the world is responsible for a huge portion of CO2 emissions generated by e-commerce.

As we report in this issue The World Economic Forum (WEF) highlighted in its 2025 discussions that the rapid growth of ultra-fast urban delivery is outstripping city infrastructure, leading to increased congestion, higher emissions, and safety concerns. WEF has predicted that without intervention, the number of delivery vehicles in the top 100 cities globally would increase by 36% by 2030, to reach approximately 7.2 million trucks and vans, leading to significant challenges like increased emissions and congestion. This will not only result in an increase of about 6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, but it will also increase travel times by 21%, as vehicles will take longer due to higher traffic congestion.

Once again, should we not ask what are the behaviours causing these outcomes, and who are the worst offenders? The prime movers are not evenly spread, and the most profligate shoppers surely have a particular responsibility? This major problem can be attributed, once again, to those consumers with the greatest appetite for convenience, and thus the biggest environmental footprint.

There is little doubt that the e-commerce revolution has brought some advantages, but though they may not know it, most consumers choose convenience over principles, if they ever stop to think about them. Ultra-fast urban delivery has become the expected new normal, and drives more and more individual consignments sent to doorsteps around the world.

Meanwhile other elements of more overt ‘anti-social’ behaviour amongst travel and transport users remain a challenge. This issue includes discussion in respect of a couple of them. One is the concern at the impact of the widespread switch to ownership of Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) in urban areas, and the implications for road and parking space, accident frequency and severity, and consequences for pedestrians and other vulnerable road users, and neighbourhood environmental quality. In the context of social responsibility in travel behaviour, use of SUVs might be regarded as similar to drink-driving and smoking, in their once unacknowledged dimensions of selfishness and unthinking impacts on other people.

Similarly, greater attention seems now being given to another piece of thoughtless individual travel behaviour that causes annoyance and a reduced general quality of travel experience. This is the use of portable devices on public transport to effectively broadcast music and personal conversations to anyone within earshot, rather than in private by deploying headphones. TfL has launched a campaign on this issue, and the Government has been urged to tighten up the legislative position so that action can be taken more easily against culprits.

Though it may often seem so, travel activity is seldom actually a private individual matter to be indulged in innocently and inconsequentially. But the link between activity and effect is still poorly understood. We can and do measure the frequency and extent of transport and travel, as the NTS data demonstrates. We can also examine some of its particular demographic characteristics, and even seek to put values on the aggregate overall costs and benefits. But tracking and highlighting where the individual impacts and responsibilities lie is a much less well-developed topic.

It surely must be a very necessary area for study and discussion to better understand the ‘personal footprint’ we each impose on other people and the planet with our individual travel and related behaviour, if that impact is to be recognised and ameliorated.

Peter Stonham is the Editorial Director of TAPAS Network

This article was first published in LTT magazine, LTT921, 4 September 2025.