A study of around 850 million people from 794 urban areas worldwide found that more than half of the respondents commute to work by car every day. Variations in transport tend to follow regional patterns.
The study by Rafael Prieto-Curiel from the Complexity Science Hub in Austria and Juan Pablo Ospina from EAFIT University in Columbia was published in the Environment International Journal in March 2024. It is one of the largest of its kind. It uses more than 1,000 surveys to capture trends in global mobility. The researchers only included trips to work (comparable surveys on general journeys are harder to come by) and surveys conducted before 2019 (to avoid the effect of lockdowns, which hit various cities at different times).
The surveys show where people use the most active forms of travel. The 100 least active cities in the study are all found in North America—a result of decades of government pro-car policies and subsidies. The least active city outside North America is Birmingham, in Britain’s West Midlands, a region long associated with the country’s automotive industry. The most active city is Quelimane, a small seaport in Mozambique. Other cities in the top ten are all in Europe, including two each in the Netherlands and Spain.
In the USA and Canada, almost 92% of journeys are made by car.
The percentage of commutes by car in Northern and Southern European cities ranges from 50% to 75%.
In several European cities, many commutes are made by bike or foot, such as in Copenhagen (47%) and Utrecht (75%).
Public transportation is crucial in some European cities. For instance, public transit accounts for most journeys in Paris (60%) and nearly half in London (45%).
In Southern and Eastern Asia, public transportation accounts for a significant share of journeys, such as in Hong Kong (77%), Seoul (66%), and Tokyo (51%).
See the charts prepared by the Economist below and find the original article here.
