Travel: Greater Manchester

(asked on 30th March 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent estimate his Department has made of the level of (a) car ownership, (b) bus usage (iii) light rail usage, (d) train usage and (e) active travel usage in (i) Bolton South East constituency, (ii) the borough of Bolton and (iii) Greater Manchester.


Answered by
Richard Holden Portrait
Richard Holden
This question was answered on 17th April 2023

The information requested regarding (a) car ownership, (b) bus usage (c) light rail usage, (d) train usage and (e) active travel usage in (i) Bolton South East constituency, (ii) the borough of Bolton and (iii) Greater Manchester is given below, where available. In several cases, data are not available specifically for Bolton South East constituency or the Borough of Bolton.

A) Car ownership

According to the Department’s vehicle statistics, there were 1,393,157 registered cars as at end-September 2022 in Greater Manchester, 127,329 in Bolton Borough and 42,868 in Bolton South East Constituency.

B) Bus usage

According to the Department’s annual bus statistics, in the financial year 2021/22 there were 121.0 million local bus journeys taken in Greater Manchester. Data for (i) Bolton South East constituency and (ii) the borough of Bolton are not available

C) Light rail usage

According to the Department’s light rail statistics, in the financial year 2021/22 there were 26.0 million journeys taken on Manchester Metrolink. Data for (i) Bolton South East constituency and (ii) the borough of Bolton are not available

D) Train usage

According to Office of Rail and Road statistics in 2021/22 there were 39.2 million passenger rail journeys within the North West that started or ended in Greater Manchester. There were also 13.9 million journeys that started or ended in Greater Manchester that ended or started from regions other than the North West. Data for (i) Bolton South East constituency and (ii) the borough of Bolton are not available

E) Active travel usage

According to the Department’s annual walking and cycling statistics, between November 2020 and November 2021, 61.4% of adults walked or cycled at least once a week in Bolton (Local authority) and 66.6% of adults walked or cycled at least once a week in Greater Manchester. Data for (i) Bolton South East constituency are not available

F) Personal travel patterns in Greater Manchester

Additionally, information from the Department’s National Travel Survey shows that, on average each year between 2010 and 2019 there were 244 walking trips per person, 11 pedal cycle trips per person, 81 bus trips per person, 12 surface rail trips per person and 11 light rail trips per person by residents of Greater Manchester. 76% of adults in Greater Manchester had access to a car in 2021. National Travel Survey data is not available at constituency or borough level.

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