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Data and trends

What are the key trends influencing transport in our city regions? And what’s the data behind them? Find out through our unique and unrivalled access to the numbers that shape urban transport patterns.

Our powerful interactive tool, the Data Hub, will be available here soon.

How we work on data and trends

 

Tom Ellerton, Technical Manager at the Urban Transport Group, is the lead member of staff working on this topic. 

Our Insight group within the Professional Network works on data and trends. 

Trends on computer screen

Trends and scenarios

The COVID-19 pandemic, the cost of living crisis and inflation have had major impacts on travel habits. Find out what these changing habits mean for future transport trends.
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Trends on computer screen
Bus in Leeds

Metropolitan Bus Model

The Metropolitan Bus Model is the most sophisticated bus modelling tool for UK urban areas currently available. It was devised and created by the Urban Transport Group for the benefit of its full members to help them plan and develop their bus networks.
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Bus in Leeds
Bus seats

What's driving bus patronage demand?

This 2019 research programme aims to further develop the evidence base on what drives bus patronage and the lessons that can be learned in order to reverse the decline of the bus.
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Bus seats

Getting Smart on Data

Emerging data will mean transport users will become fully informed about their travel choices whilst at the same time it will transform the ability of transport authorities to plan and manage transport networks and services more efficiently and effectively. This report finds four key challenges for transport authorities in fully realising the benefits.
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Number crunch report

Number crunch reports

This series of reports - published prior to the COVID-19 pandemic - identified some of the most defining transport patterns changing the face of the UK’s city regions.
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Number crunch report

Resources for this topic

View documents, reports and other material.

Report

What scope for boosting bus use? An analysis of the Intrinsic Bus Potential of local authority areas in England

This research, by Transport for Quality of Life, identifies the underlying conditions that best predict levels of bus use in local areas. It points to six conditions which, when combined, are used to define the ‘Intrinsic Bus Potential’ (IBP) of a local authority area.

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Number crunch 2019 cover

Report

Number crunch 2019: Urban transport trends in changing times

This is the second in our Number crunch report series and provides an updated overview of the key trends over the last ten years, as well as taking a look at what the new and most recent data is telling us.

We are living in rapidly changing times. Big shifts are taking place in urban transport trends.

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How people respond to the experience of bus travel cover

Report

How people respond to the experience of bus travel and the implications for the future of bus services

This literature review - carried out by SYSTRA for the Urban Transport Group - aims to appraise the existing evidence base on the range of factors that influence how people respond to the experience of bus travel, with a focus on the social-emotional experience of bus travel and on the experiences of different socio-demographic groups.

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Report

Getting Smart on Data

Emerging data will mean transport users will become fully informed about their travel choices whilst at the same time it will transform the ability of transport authorities to plan and manage transport networks and services more efficiently and effectively. This report finds four key challenges for transport authorities in fully realising the benefits.
Read more Download file

Briefing

Bus Operator Profitability Analysis 2017

This briefing paper summarising the current financial position (as at January 2017) of the largest bus companies operating in metropolitan areas and the wider city regions and comparing their performance with that of their London counterparts.

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