Distance Travelled to Work in England and Wales, 2001 Census

2001 census data on the straight-line distance in kilometers between residence and workplace postcodes for the working population of England and Wales. The dataset is published by the Office for National Statistics via Neighbourhood Statistics and excludes people working from home, with no fixed workplace, or on offshore outposts. It is available at multiple geographic levels from Output Area to National.

Use Cases

• Modeling urban sprawl and housing affordability based on commuting distances.
• Planning public transport infrastructure based on origin-destination patterns.
• Analyzing regional economic linkages based on workforce mobility.
• Studying environmental impacts of commuting based on travel distances.

Strengths

• Data is sourced from the national 2001 Census, a high-coverage population survey.
• Provides geographic granularity across seven administrative levels, from Output Area to National.
• Uses a consistent measurement method (straight-line distance between postcodes).

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is from 2001 and may not reflect current commuting patterns.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics

Collection Method

Survey (census)

Time Range

2001

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:31:05.601136; freshness should be verified.

Geography

England and Wales