Census 2001 distinguished between commuters using car, bus,
metro, cycle, and walking to get to work. In order to restrict the
sample to employed people, additional criteria related to employment
status were applied. These criteria included part-time and
full-time workers, as well as data on unemployed and retired residents.
Fig. 1, as an example of census data display, shows four
maps of Tyne and Wear with metro stations, bus stops and LSOA
boundaries.
As Fig. 1 displays, most of the areas where over 50% of commuters
were driving to work were located away from the Tyne and
Wear metro line, whereas areas close to metro stations had up to
25% of metro commuters. The figure also shows that the centre
of the map (Newcastle upon Tyne) is dominated by areas where
less than 20% of residents are employed full-time and the retirement
rate is below 20%.
A number of scenarios were investigated using high and low
values of census attributes to ascertain the impact on the choice
of LSOAs. As an example, Fig. 2 shows results of two different GIS
queries, where a combination of various census data was employed.
Fig. 2a highlighted over 30 LSOAs where specific values
of four basic criteria of households without a car, commuters by
car, commuters by bus, and commuters as passengers in a car were
taken into account (GISQ1). Fig. 2b displays results for a GIS query
where two additional attributes of people working from home and
people working full-time were applied (GISQ2).