dc.description.abstract | This is a first report from a research project on work-related travel in Sweden,
financed by the Swedish council for working life and social research. The purpose
of the report is to investigate to what extent people travel in order to
perform their work tasks, how different categories of workers differ in their
travel activity, and for what different purposes they travel. Travel between
home and the normal place of work is not included in the analyses.
Data from national travel surveys, carried out by Statistics Sweden between
1995 and 2001, are used for the study. These surveys provide detailed information
on travel activity from large national samples, but they also present some
limitations with regard to the purpose of this report. One important limitation
is that travel in the transport sector was registered only to a limited extent.
The empirical sections of the report primarily investigate the travel activity
of different categories of workers, with regard to sociodemographic characteristics,
work-related conditions and family situation. The analyses generally
show that those in privileged positions in working life tend to travel more than
those less privileged. Persons with university education, high incomes, and
full-time employment (or self-employed) travel more than others, and men
travel considerably more than women. Differences in travel activity are also
found with regard to age, industrial classification, geographical region and
telecommuting. As for family situation, differences in travel activity are relatively
small with regard to civil status and whether or not the respondents have
children. An analysis of the relationship between work-related travel and travel
for other purposes shows no clear pattern.
In addition, the report suggests a typology of different kinds of work-related
travel, based on the purpose of the journeys. The analysis indicates that different
categories of workers do not only differ with regard to how much they
travel, but also travel for different purposes and under different circumstances.
However, such differences are captured only to a limited extent in the travel
surveys, and are therefore pointed out as an interesting field for further empirical
studies. | eng |