Alternative Transport Week - Data Dive 1

I’m delighted to be supporting Kate Huntingdon with Jersey’s Alternative Transport Week in 2023 (with my data hat on). Our first planning meeting was last month and as if by magic the 2021 Census transport bulletin appeared, so of course I decided to dive in to find out what we could learn:

The first thing to note is that the main focus of the transport bulletin is vehicles. Households were asked to provide the number of cars, vans, motorcycles or mopeds owned or available to household members. How very Jersey! And exactly why we need Alternative Transport Week…to remind the good people of Jersey that there are other (better!) ways to get about. Let’s hope that by next census day the Stats unit will also be asking people how many pedal bikes, e-bikes, cargos, scooters and walking shoes they own.

The number of vehicles available to private households on census day was 77,385 up 10% on 2011. And yet the population has only grown by 5% to 103,000. This begs the question – why so many more cars? Are we getting lazier? If so, we’re probably not getting healthier. No surprises that regular exercise is good for us and just to confirm a recent World Health Organisation study[1] found that active commuting is associated with a 30% decrease in risk of type 2 diabetes and a 10% risk of cardiovascular disease.

So hooray for the 23% of Jersey workers who regularly walk to work and the 4% who get on their bikes. Not forgetting a shout out to the 4% of workers who give the environmental gift of taking the bus and still get the health benefits of walking to and from the bus stop along with a mental health lift from chatting to the other passengers they know on the way.

And to the 52% of workers still getting in cars every day…well we’re here for all 29,687 of you. The Alternative Transport Week team is looking to encourage you, help you and share the joy of getting out of a car and into work by other means. And by census day 2031 we hope, in the nicest possible way, that there are lot fewer of you.

[1] Walking and cycling: latest evidence to support policy-making and practice. Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe; 2022. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.