Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment his Department has made of the effect of the covid-19 pandemic on the future of UK car mileage in the context of (a) the National Travel Survey finding that 25 per cent of car mileage is for commuting purposes and (b) ONS data from April 2020 showing that 47 per cent of people did some work at home.
There is significant uncertainty about the impact of COVID-19 on road travel demand. The Department continues to closely monitor the impact of the pandemic and to develop tools to understand and present this uncertainty alongside other drivers of future demand such as technological change and population change.
The Department has commissioned a programme of social and behavioural research to understand the impacts of the pandemic on people’s travel behavior. This includes changes in the behaviours that drive travel demand, such as working from home, and a longitudinal survey to track changes in behaviour during the pandemic as well as people’s intentions going forward.