UK Travel to Work Areas: 2001 Vector Boundaries

Office for National Statistics provides digital vector boundaries for Travel to Work Areas in the United Kingdom as of 31 December 2001. The dataset includes multiple boundary resolutions, from full resolution to ultra generalised, each clipped to the coastline. It contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS intellectual property rights and is available via an ArcGIS INSPIRE service.

Use Cases

• Mapping commuting zones for economic analysis based on boundary polygons.
• Integrating with 2001 UK Census data for spatial demographic studies.
• Creating simplified (generalised) maps for regional planning based on the 20m, 200m, and 500m resolution options.
• Analyzing labor market geography using the official 2001 Travel to Work Area definitions.

Strengths

• Provides five distinct boundary resolutions, with file sizes ranging from 404 KB to 41 MB, catering to different use cases.
• Contains intellectual property from two authoritative UK sources: Ordnance Survey and the Office for National Statistics.
• Cross-platform presence on uk_data suggests established importance and official status.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, column names, and specific author are missing from all source entries.
• The dataset is static, representing a snapshot from 2001, which may not reflect current commuting patterns.
• The 'last updated' metadata field (2026-07-08) appears to be a future date or system artifact, conflicting with the 2001 data vintage.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics (UK), incorporating Ordnance Survey data.

Collection Method

Official digital vector boundaries created for the 2001 UK Census.

Time Range

2001

Freshness

Data represents a snapshot as of 31 December 2001. Platform metadata lists a 'last updated' date of 2026-07-08, which is likely a system timestamp and not a data update.

Geography

United Kingdom