Travel to work area

Travel to Work Areas in England and Wales

A Travel to Work Area or TTWA is a statistical tool used by UK Government agencies and local authorities, especially by the Department for Work and Pensions and Job Centres, to indicate an area where the population would generally commute to a larger town, city or conurbation for the purposes of employment.

Significance

Map of the London TTW area (red) showing the main road and rail links into the city. Commuter towns and urban areas are in grey.

As a measure based on urban areas and their commuter hinterland they are a form of Metropolitan Area, though as methods of calculation differ they cannot directly be compared with other specific measurements such as Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the United States.

TTWAs have no legal status. However, they give planners and geographers an alternate view of urban life as their boundaries are tied not to arbitrary administrative limits but socio-economic ties. Having an idea of where people commute from for work is particularly useful for public transport planning.

Definition

Travel to Work Areas are defined by the Office for National Statistics using census data for commuting between wards, based on the different locations of individuals' home and work addresses.

A Travel to Work Area is a collection of wards for which "of the resident economically active population, at least 75% actually work in the area, and also, that of everyone working in the area, at least 75% actually live in the area". According to this measure, there were 243 TTWAs within the United Kingdom in 2007.[1]

The 243 TTWAs are:[2]

The State of the Cities

Travel to Work Areas were selected to approximate city regions as one of the main units of comparison used by the State of the English Cities report and database, commissioned and maintained by the Communities and Local Government department of the UK Government.[3]

This has greatly increased the amount of information available about Travel to Work Areas, although the State of the Cities only publishes data for the 56 Travel to Work Areas-based around Primary Urban Areas in England. Travel to Work Areas in Scotland and Wales and those covering only rural areas are not included.[4]

To increase the range of statistics available the State of the Cities also publishes data for Travel to Work Areas approximated to local authority boundaries. These areas can differ considerably from the more accurate ward-based areas.[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Beginners' guide to UK geography - Travel to Work Areas (TTWAs) Office for National Statistics
  2. ↑ "Travel To Work Areas as at 2007". Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 2008-10-12.
  3. ↑ Robinson, Phillipa "And city regions......", State of the Cities Database, Presentation to North East Regional Information Partnership
  4. ↑ - State of the Cities - Making sense of cities - Travel to work areas (TTWAs) Department for Communities and Local Government
  5. ↑ Robinson, Phillipa "Presenting Statistics on UK Geographies", State of the Cities Database, Presentation to North East Regional Information Partnership

External links

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