ONS: Infrastructure

Transport data on Regional Snapshot covers road, rail and air travel, expenditure and road accidents.

Travel Trends presents the main annual results from the International Passenger Survey (IPS), which collects information from a sample of passengers as they enter or leave the UK by the principal air, sea and tunnel routes.  It includes detailed analyses on visits overseas residents made to the UK and on visits UK residents made abroad.

Regional Transport Statistics is an annual publication, last issued in December 2007 by Department for Transport (DfT) This publication brings together a wide range of transport statistics for Great Britain and Northern Ireland at Government Office Region and former Metropolitan County level.  Regional variations are complex, particularly because of the widely varying local circumstances. In particular, these include differences in economy, population structure and density, and transport systems. London, in particular, is very distinctive in transport terms.

Road Casualties in Great Britain: 2007 was published in September 2008.  There are detailed tables by region and local authority.

Transport in the South East is a selection of documents relating to planning and developments in the region.  In transport terms the region includes London and parts of the East of England.

Road traffic statistics give vehicle flows for local authorities.

Core Accessibility Indicators have been calculated to help Local Authorities develop their evidence base for their accessibility strategies using nationally consistent datasets.  The indicators provide a measure of accessibility  by public transport, walking and (where appropriate) cycling to seven key serices: primary schools, secondary schools, further education, GP's, hospitals, food shops and employment.

Construction Statistics  is an annual report  giving a broad perspective of statistical trends in the construction industry in Great Britain through the last decade together with some international comparisons and features on leading initiatives that may influence the future.  Included in the publication are a number of tables showing data at a regional level.  The latest edition relates to 2007.

New Orders in the Construction Industry  is an Information bulletin of the latest monthly estimates of new construction orders. It contains construction new orders (current price and constant price seasonally adjusted) broken down by sector and, in current prices, by region and by type of work.

Housing data available on Regional Snapshot covers a range of information relating to regions, local authorities and local authority districts of the UK and covers house building, tenure, dwelling prices, mortgages, rents and council tax.

A further selection of housing statistics is available from the Communities and Local Government website.

Communications is a vital part of infrastructure and covers many facets of broadcasting, telecoms and radiocommunication. A Communications report for 2007 and a collection of papers related to Communications in the next decade may be of interest:

A high proportion of infrastructure is created as a result of government expenditure, both nationally and regionally. Each year details are published in Public Expenditure Statistical Analysis (PESA):

Analysis of public expenditure by country and region.



Understanding the various different type of geography used in the United Kingdom is very important when interpreting any sub-national data.  A beginners guide is available on the National Statistics website.  The geography section of the site is also updated regularly and provides access to standard coding and boundaries.

Travel to Work Areas (TTWAs) have been devised for those involved in labour market analysis and planning.  It is useful to be able to use data for zones that are in labour market areas.  To meet this need, the zones must be defined so that the bulk of their resident population also work within the same area.  The fundamental criterion is that, of the resident economically active population, at least 75 per cent actually work in the area, and also, that of everyone working in the area, at least 75 percent actually live in the area.

Labour market areas are defined using an analysis of commuting patterns, and the Office of National Statistics (ONS) has worked with Newcastle University to apply a complex allocation process to define an updated set of TTWAs based on 2001 Census.

CommuterView: Visualisation of UK Commuting Patterns is a tool developed by the Office for national Statistics for visualising commuting flows as at the 2001 Census. CommuterView provides interactive maps allowing users to display flows of commuters between Super Output Areas (or equivalents) across the UK.  CommuterView has been released on DVD and includes 39 different versions covering various subgroups of the UK population (e.g. part-timers, train users, people of different ethnicities etc).  the tool also allows you to display various backgrounds relating to the labour market (for example, unemployment rate).

The DVD is free, for more details, including how to obtain it, please see the CommuterView page