Supporting Information

Additional background information on the SHS

The Scottish Household Survey (SHS) started in February 1999. Its principal purpose is to collect information to inform policy on Transport, Communities and Local Government, but other topics are covered, such as household composition, amenities, employment or unemployment, income, assets and savings, credit and debt, health, disabilities and care, and other topics. The SHS provides the first representative Scottish data on many subjects, such as access to the Internet, daily travel patterns, etc.

Where appropriate, the SHS uses the harmonised concepts and questions for government social surveys which have been developed by the Government Statistical Service, to facilitate comparison with the results of other government surveys. However, differences in sampling and survey methods mean that SHS results will differ from those of other surveys.

The SHS is intended to be a survey of private households. For the purposes of the survey, a household is defined as one person or a group of people living in accommodation as their only or main residence and either sharing at least one meal a day or sharing the living accommodation. A student's term-time address is taken as his/her main residence, in order that they are counted where they live for most of the year.

The sample was drawn from the Small User file of the Postcode Address File (PAF), which is a listing of all active address points maintained by the Post Office. The Small User file excludes addresses where an average of more than 25 items of post is delivered per day. Blocks of flats etc, which have several dwellings at the same address, are not excluded from the Small User file: in such cases, the file's Multiple Occupancy Indicator is used to count each dwelling separately for the selection of the sample.

People in certain types of accommodation (such as nurses’ homes, student halls of residence etc.) will be excluded from the SHS unless the accommodation is listed on the Small User file of the PAF and it represents the sole or main residence of the people concerned. People living in bed and breakfast accommodation may be included, if it is listed in the Small User file of the PAF and if it is their sole or main residence. Prisons, hospitals and military bases are excluded. This exclusion of some forms of accommodation may have particular effects upon the inclusion of certain groups in survey, such as disabled people.

Further information on the Scottish Household Survey can be found on the Scottish Government website.

Comparability with previous years

In 2022 and 2023, as has been typical for most of the SHS’s history, the survey was carried out as a face-to-face interview, primarily administered in people’s homes. This represents a return to the traditional methodology after the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the 2020 and 2021 survey years and necessitated a change in approach.

Only a small proportion of the 2020 survey had been completed before the Covid-19 pandemic took full effect. The approach was adapted, and the remainder of the 2020 survey fieldwork was carried out using telephone interviewing. In 2021, telephone interviewing was again used.

Everything else being equal, we would expect some genuine changes in people’s views, experiences, and habits relating to transport during the pandemic. However, it is not possible to determine the extent to which differences between the 2020 and 2021 results and previous years represent genuine changes in views and experiences, or are due to changes in how the survey was carried out.

Response rates for the telephone survey were lower than for previous face-to-face surveys, and there was a change in the profile of respondents (e.g. home owners and people with degree level qualifications were over-represented). There are also potential mode effects (respondents answering differently over the telephone than they would face-to-face).

In addition, 2020 data only covered October 2020 and January to early April 2021, so there may have been a seasonal effect upon some data.

For these reasons, the 2020 and 2021 editions of the survey are not considered to be comparable with other years.

As the survey has returned to the traditional methodology for 2022 and 2023, the 2022 and 2023 editions are considered to be comparable with earlier surveys.

The annual SHS Methodology Reports provide more detail on the changes in approach, and how this may have impacted the results.

Other Transport findings from the Scottish Household Survey

Disability and Transport

A publication providing further analysis of the Scottish Household Survey for disabled people, as well as measurements from other sources, Disability and Transport, was published on 18^th October 2022. An updated version of the publication, incorporating 2022 and 2023 data, will be published early next year.

Transport Scotland Statistics

The full range of transport statistics publications are available on the Transport Scotland website.