Geodemographic travel to work flows into London, UK

Abstract

GIScience 2016 Short Paper Proceedings Geodemographic travel to work flows into London, UK. C.Gale and D.Martin Administrative Data Research Centre England, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK. E-mail: c.gale@soton.ac.uk; d.j.martin@soton.ac.uk Abstract We present a method for using geodemographic classifications to profile travel-to-work flows into and within London, UK. Geodemographics have been used in the past to profile these flows, but have focused on the residential locations of flow origins due to limitations in data availability and appropriate spatial units. The 2011 census in England and Wales introduced new spatial units designed specifically for workplace data, leading to creation of a classification of workplaces and workers. Combining this workplace classification with a residential based equivalent means the flows between each can be calculated. This innovative approach results in a two-way classification which can be interrogated to better understand and simplify the complexities of commuting into and within London, thus exploring travel to work within a global city at fine spatial resolution. 1. Introduction Travel to work flows enhance our understanding of local labour markets, economic delivery, transport planning, daytime service delivery and general mobility within a population. Traditional sources of these data, such as national censuses, provide detailed outputs (Stillwell et al., 2010), however the level of complexity that accompanies such rich and large datasets makes any attempt to summarise, visualise or interpret the flows challenging. For example, 4.5 million travel to work flows were recorded into and within London in the 2011 census in England and Wales. A solution to this problem is to reduce the level of complexity by using geodemographic classifications – summary indicators of the social, economic, demographic and built characteristics of small areas. However, conventional geodemographic classifications focus on residential populations, rather than those of the workplace, with the 2011 Area Classification for Output Areas (2011 OAC) (Gale et al., 2016), being one such example. Without an accompanying workplace classification, the scope for geodemographic analysis of travel to work flow data are limited. The creation of the Classification of Workplace Zones for England and Wales, or COWZ-EW (Cockings et al., 2015), using a new workplace geography of England and Wales (Martin et al., 2013) is therefore an important development. Combining the 2011 OAC and COWZ-EW to profile places of work and residence allows for a unique insight into the population flows into London. 2. Data and methods The 2011 OAC (Gale et al., 2016) is a geodemographic classification of the UK created using 2011 census data for output areas (OAs). OAs are the smallest geographical units for which census residential statistics are available in the UK. The 2011 OAC is the most recent example of a residential based classification based on census data, with previous classifications created based on 2001 (Vickers and Rees, 2007), 1991 (Blake and Openshaw, 1994, 1995) and 1981 (Charlton et al., 1985) UK census outputs. Conversely, COWZ-EW takes advantage of a new type of small geographical units for workplace statistics from the latest census of England and Wales in 2011. These units, known as workplace zones (WZs) (Martin et al., 2013), allowed for a classification based on the characteristics of the workplace population at places of work