Last week finally saw the first major release of detailed data from last year’s Census. There are a huge number of stories to be told from this data. Over the next few weeks we’ll be illuminating a few of them – starting today with an initial look at how New Zealanders travel for work and education.
National trends for travel to work: driving is down, work from home is up
The question of how we travel to work has been a feature of the census in some form since at least 1971, and the whole time there’s been one major trend: the rise of driving (at the cost of other modes). However, driving to work peaked in 2006 at just over 69%, after which it roughly plateaued through to the 2018 census.
And then COVID came along and changed how many of us work, resulting in one of the biggest shifts in travel patterns since it started being measured: working at home jumping from 12% to 18%.
National trends for travel to education: fewer children walking to school
This question has only been asked since 2018, so there’s less of a longitudinal data set for tracking trends. However, at a glance you can see more studying from home in 2023 (COVID clearly likely to be a factor), but also more kids were being driven to school in 2023 at the expense of other modes, with walking to school noticeably down on 2018. What’s the best guess at what’s going on there?
Urban travel to work and school – a closer look at Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch
I’ve chosen to zoom in on Auckland and Wellington as they’re really our only two transport systems that show strong multi-modal use. I’ve also included results for the Christchurch City Council area, even though the data for this doesn’t go back as far as it does nationally. For all three cities I’m looking at the period between the 1996 census and 2023 census.
Auckland
In Auckland, you can see a broadly similar trend to what is seen nationally. Some things of note:
- Work from home saw a much bigger jump in Auckland (and Wellington) compared to national results, more than doubling from 8.7% to 18.2%.
- Historically, Auckland has always had a slightly higher share of driving than the country as a whole. However, the rise of working from home has changed that: for the first time driving in Auckland was below the national average.
- The census had perhaps the worst possible timing for public transport numbers, reflected in the fact public transport use was effectively back to what it was in 2013, dropping from 10.7% to 7.8%. For context: not only were travel patterns being impacted by COVID, but Auckland was suffering from the height of the bus driver shortage, resulting in thousands of services a day being cancelled. Moreover, key parts of the rail network were shut down for major repairs. And on top of that, just over a month before the census, the city had been hammered by disastrous flooding followed by Cyclone Gabrielle, and parts of the network were still impacted.
- This is likely also reflected in the fact that trains showed the biggest percentage reduction of any mode, almost halving compared to 2018.
- There was a very small reduction in people cycling but the main impact to active modes was that walking to work reduced from 4.3% to 3.3%.
For trips to education – a question that has been asked since 2018 – the changes are similar but not quite as pronounced. The rise in studying from home is most striking, and more young people were driven to school than in 2018, while fewer worked. One point of note is that cycling to education saw a small increase. (In some places more than others – we’ll get to that!)
Wellington
Wellington saw the same trends as seen nationally and in Auckland:
- Work from home jumped, from 9% to 19%
- Vehicle use continued to decline, with driving dropping below 50% for the first time.
- Like Auckland, public transport use was down, but not as significantly, with combined bus and train travel dropping from 18% to 15.5%
- Walking and cycling took a bigger hit than they did in Auckland, but are still higher overall than in Auckland.
Interestingly, Wellington seems to have had much more studying from home than Auckland, even before the pandemic.
Christchurch
Christchurch saw a different trend from the other two major cities:
- The rise in working from home is far less pronounced than it is in Auckland and Wellington. Is that due to the nature of jobs in the city, or something else?
- Car use, while down, tends to be slightly higher than the other major cities – indeed, it was higher than Auckland in 2023.
- The proportion of people using public transport is smaller, and relatively static in this census.
- Where Ōtautahi really shines is its bike networks. These have seen the city buck the national trend: Christchurch increased its share of people cycling since the last census. (There’s been great recent reporting on this: a 28 September story about the city’s cycle counts, and this October 5 story about which neighbourhood topped the nation for cycling mode share – it was Beckenham, with 1 in 5 journeys to work made by bike.)
And across the city, almost 10% of people are cycling to school in Christchurch. As always with mode-share stats for active and public transport, while they look small by comparison, it’s interesting to contemplate what a given city would look like if those numbers opted for driving instead (even more congested at peak). Or, on the sunny side, if they were to say double as a result of investment (more free-flowing at peak).
Also useful to recall that commuter trips, whether to work or to school, are just a fraction of the daily travel in cities. The post below uses an international average but it rings true for New Zealand, where our understanding is that commuting accounts for around 20% of daily journeys, and is falling.
Work commutes represent just 16% of journeys, yet our entire transport system is designed around them.The real potential for cycling lies in the other 84%—shorter trips within our neighborhoods to local shops, cafes, restaurants, doctor’s, friend’s, transit, sports, and school.
— Melissa & Chris Bruntlett (@modacitylife.bsky.social) 2024-10-05T17:11:30.057Z
Digging into the details: Auckland Mode-Share Maps
From the data, I’ve also whipped up a couple of quick maps looking at different modes. In this case I’ve combined both the work and education data to get a fuller picture of how parts of Auckland move at peak times of day.
Working from Home in Auckland
In Auckland, working from home has increased almost everywhere, but most notably in the inner isthmus suburbs and on the North Shore; these are areas typically most heavily linked to working in the city centre.
Public Transport
The areas where public transport is the strongest are similar in 2023 to 2018, but the intensity of use has noticeably reduced. Public transport has recovered a bit more since that census, but it will likely take us a while longer just to get back to pre-COVID levels of usage.
Cycling to work and school
I haven’t shown a comparison to 2018 here as it looks nearly identical. Cycling remains the strongest in the inner West (probably no surprise, given proximity to the city’s longest-standing bike infrastructure) with Point Chevalier a standout, even before recent investment in local bike lanes. Equally busy for biking are the Devonport Peninsula, with notable activity around Takapuna Grammar and Bayswater schools.
Other strong areas for cycling mode share that stand out: along the waterfront and around the bays – and check out Te Atatū Peninsula, Hobsonville Point, and Māngere Bridge/ Māngere West. Likewise, the isthmus shows strong consistent ridership, with an interesting concentration in Puketāpapa, which has made a point of connecting its local greenways.
We’ll be looking to dive into more detail on this and other Census topics in more detail over the coming days and weeks. Is there anything from today’s charts and maps that stands out to you?
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Via David Hood 5 months ago
https://bsky.app/profile/thoughtfulnz.bsky.social/post/3kqmucu3s7c2l
YJMob100K: City-scale and longitudinal dataset of anonymized human mobility trajectories
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-024-03237-9
A few years ago I raised the possibility of using anonymized cell phone/tower & HOP card tracking for modelling peak-time commuter in Auckland, for the design of more useful bus routes, with AT transport.
IMHO it still would be the most effective planning tool Auckland could use.
Well, it stands out that in 2018 there was no Rangitoto Island at all in the Working From Home map – and the island then miraculously appeared in 2023, whereupon 30% of the people living on Rangitoto were now working from home! Also shows that more people living on Rangitoto are taking public transport to get to work now. Hmmmm. Shows how easily statistics can show trends in things that aren’t actually a thing.
More seriously though, I’m disappointed that in neither Auckland nor Wellington, do more people seem to be taking a bike to work. Let’s hope that has changed by the time of the next census.
I hope Rangitoto gets a 4 lane super highway around the perimeter to accelerate the local enonomy
I think its important to recognise that a more people probably are biking in Auckland (despite AT failing to meet delivery targets for cycleways) but not as a % given our high population growth it is not shifting quickly.
Are you surprised the people who live on Rakino Island prefer to work at home?
From my experience as a commuter cyclist in Tamaki Makarau Auckland, I would say there is an uptick of cyclists on my Tamaki Drive route. Certainly more visible than there were say 3 years ago. Huge uplift in e-bikes (including myself). Still not as many as I would like to see every morning and night, but summer is coming…..
That’s why they need to implement a congestion charge for the central city. As a frustrated north shore cyclist who works in town, I’d love to have protected cycleways to commute on. I’m staggered that anyone who lives in say, Mission Bay, doesn’t ride to work.
It seems walking and cycling in Auckland declined even when taking the rise in work from home into account. Maybe people who are able to cycle to work also tend to be those who have an option to work from home.
I’m fascinated by those areas with high bike mode-share. For the most part, although they’re within reach of quality bike infrastructure and public transport access (e.g. the NW cycleway, the city centre bike network, the Devonport ferry), there is little to no safe and dedicated local cycling infrastructure to link to those facilities.
So what’s the secret sauce? I think it’s a critical mass of locals who are *just doing it*, and in the process making cycling an appealing and “high-vis” option for their communities.
In my neighbourhood of Pt Chev – which is currently getting some dedicated local bike infra (although ironically, none at all north of Meola Road, which has the highest bike mode share) – the local culture of all-ages cycling has been kept alive in part by using the footpath as a “life hack” wherever roads are too busy and traffic too fast.
This may not be ideal, but it’s a very conscious choice, as confirmed by surveying locals in 2020 about the impact of Level 4 traffic volumes on where they preferred to ride. Choosing the footpath was widely understood to be a reasonable option for kids, older people and others new to riding a bike.
What’s my point? Well, partly that yes, “if you build it they will come”, but also “guess what, they’re already here!”
But because the census only asks about journeys to work and school, just like AT’s automatic bike counters which are largely on leisure and commute routes, it’s failing to count all the other local bike trips people are out there making every day.
So, one way to read the cycling mode-share map would be to pour investment towards all the areas that already show existing enthusiasm and thus great promise – the peninsulas of Te Atatū and Devonport and Hobsonville Point and Māngere Bridge; the increasingly connected ribbons round the bays and in Puketāpapa; the inner west, inner east, and northern isthmus.
Another would be to start properly counting who’s biking in every part of the city. Do observational counts. Local surveys. Analyse traffic cameras at signalised intersections. Set up some of those visual counters that also track pedestrians.
You’d quickly discover you’d drawn a travel-demand route map that looks a LOT like the long-planned Auckland Cycle Network, as enshrined in the Auckland Plan and all the Local Board Plans, and as visible online via AT’s Future Connect tool: https://mahere.at.govt.nz/FutureConnect/
Joining the dots, you’d realise there’s a perfectly good bike network right under our noses, right now: it’s just currently buried under parked and moving cars.
In a just world, you’d crack on with daylighting that network, building it as quickly, safely and affordably as possible, to make neighbourhoods immensely more accessible for more people, for many of the short trips that make up most of our daily travel. It’s entirely within our grasp.
TL;DR build the bike network pls
Perhaps its just indicative of the potential for what low traffic neighbourhoods can achieve. Places like peninsulas that are inherently low traffic by not being on a through route to anywhere are more bikeable because of the lower amount of traffic on the streets even if they lack dedicated facilities on the minor roads. Whereas inner suburbs that get lots of rat running through the minor roads by drivers trying to dodge congestion on arterials will never feel safe without separated facilities, or LTN treatments to keep the through traffic out.
Also shout-out to Bike Te Atatū, who prognosticated the bikeability of their peninsula over a decade ago in this “futurementary”. The census data suggests: bring it on!
A great vision from Bike Te Atatū ( even if my scene fell onto the cutting room floor!) showing how slow speed streets are a “quick” piece of infrastructure fix that benefit all the community however they chose to get around.
Forgotten how the question was framed but work from homers perhaps the biggest cycle walking group otherwise.
Well I’m a work from homer who also bike rides everyday to stuff, particularly work stuff, but not to ‘a job’, a single work place, I am not commuting.
In the census I am recorded as WFH.
Sometimes I drive or use PT, but I ride more than anything, yet I work, ‘from home’.
I don’t think the census is very much use for travel data
It would be an interesting exercise figuring out what to ask.
You can’t do a smaller survey than the Census — in most parts of Auckland even the Census is barely large enough to record any cycling at all.
It is useful. We need to learn how to present it. For too long people have been using the travel to work numbers to explain all travel which it does not. Census Travel data excludes about 25% of people.
When the Germans only count travel to work they have about 65% driving, not much different to the 69% in New Zealand.
https://hamiltonurbanblog.substack.com/p/future-proof-transport-mode-share
The percentage of people actually driving for work (being paid to drive) could be below 10 percent of the total number of people travelling.
WFH should be counted as walk to work.
“WFH should be counted as walk to work.”
Yeah, but unlike driving, Simeon Brown will NOT subsidise your walk (at home or otherwise) anymore! Finally those freeloading shoe-leather users will stop being coddled.
Real Kiwis love their cars (can I get subsidies if I drive to my shed in my backyard where my WFH office is?)
If you build it, they will come…keep building carways, we will increase traffic, build bikeways and tramways and Busways we will make it easier to move around without a private motor vehicle.
But it is a huge fight against the motornormative nation that we are, and it is a very lonely fight, even in the centre of our biggest city.
Cars continue to dominate, and we were raised to see them as normal, our kids have been raised to see them as normal, and our politicians have no long term vision, no desire to improve our health, our quality of life, nor our chances of survival.
The statistics only confirm the truly hopeless state we are in, as the world melts, we drive around in circles, like lemmings, or whatever the current batch of zombies are labelled in popular culture.
bah humbug
Wow, as expected though, my suburb is white in the last cycle data map in the post.
If we count all people in travel percentage, the number driving is much less.
2018 census day in Hamilton 16,755 (10.4) walk/cycled, 8,453 (5.3%) stayed home, 86,753 (53,9%) travelled by vehicle, 6,408 (4%) Bused, 42,589 (27%) did not answer question.
The reason we get a bias in people saying people what to drive is because we exclude 27% of people from survey
https://hamiltonurbanblog.substack.com/p/future-proof-transport-mode-share
Please provide links to support your findings.
Im guessing, without looking too deeply
https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/2023-census-population-dwelling-and-housing-highlights
Any data nerds out there -please add your links of choice.
Under Tools / NZ.Stat (now close) you could download all sorts of census numbers. You can still check numbers using 2018 Census place summaries. Hamilton population was 160,911 the number employed full-time 49.6% which equals 79,812 people in work. 10.7% said they drove a company vehicle which equals 8,540 people which is 5.3% drive FOR work. The actual number was 8,595 people who said they ‘Drove company vehicle’ which include people driving company vehicle, but not in full time employment.
94% of people in Hamilton do not drive for work. They could choose whatever mode they wanted.
It would be great to get scooters into the data as they are growing too and some who might have cycled now prefer the scooter option.
In our car-dominated New Zealand, the scooter is often a more sensible choice, sadly. When the cycleways stop, you can go onto the footpath. When it gets too fast/busy/crazy for human beings to be on the road, you can go onto the footpath. Which is much less feasible for someone on a bike.
How! did you get “2023 census main means of travel ” I have been waiting patiently for this date. When not published two weeks ago I made an OIA request . Response back for census NZ was .. NOT Releasing until mid 2025. This is crazy , by then $2.5B in transport infostructure spending would either be allocated or about to be spent in new 12 months .
This is their response to my : “Official Information Act (OIA) request: Request for 2023 census main means of travel
On 10 October 2024, you contacted Stats NZ requesting, under the Official Information Act
1982 (the Act), the fol owing information:
• We have been waiting patiently for the release of the 2023 census data, specifical
regarding the “main means of travel”. Please refer to the attached Excel file for the
2018 data, which il ustrates the format required for this request.
• Below is an example of data fields from a 2018 Statistics New Zealand Excel download:
REPLY
At present Stats NZ plans to release the equivalent data for 2023 Census in June 2025
once the data has been processed for publication. Again, this wil be released via the Stats
NZ Geographic Data Service rather than with other 2023 Census data on Aotearoa Data
Explorer.
Your request is refused under section 18(f) of the Act on the basis that substantial collation
and research would be required to supply the requested information. Although the information
you have requested has not yet been created and published by Stats NZ, it may be created
from the raw data held by Stats NZ, upon receipt of a customised data request. Please note
that there is a standard charge of $155 plus GST per hour for customised data requests. If you
would like to proceed with a request, one can be made through contacting Stats NZ’s
Information Centre through one of the following methods:
Where are all these data available?
I can’t find them anywhere on the stats website.