Accredited official statistics

NTS 2024: Disability

Published 27 August 2025

About this release

The National Travel Survey (NTS) is a household survey of personal travel by residents of England travelling within Great Britain, from data collected via interviews and a 7-day travel diary, which enables analysis of patterns and trends. Please see our latest technical report for more details. This release covers travel trends for disabled people and people with mobility difficulties.

These are accredited official statistics and were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in September 2018. For more information, see the background information section.

This publication includes Accredited Official Statistics. Accredited Official Statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. For more details, see the Accredited Official Statistics Policy.

For more details about these statistics, see the ‘About these statistics’ section.

National Travel Survey definitions

Disability From 2018, a person is considered to have a disability in the NTS if they report any physical or mental health condition or illness that lasts or is expected to last 12 months or more, and which limits their ability to carry out day-to-day activities. This is consistent with the core definition of disability under the Equality Act 2010, and complies with harmonised standards for social surveys published in August 2011. Some people classified as disabled and having rights under the Equality Act 2010 are not captured by this definition. This includes people with a long-standing illness or disability which is not currently affecting their day-to-day activities.

People living in care homes and other places such as community living environments are not captured through the survey and therefore the survey may under estimate disability prevalence and the prevalence of different impairments. This is particularly true for older age groups.

This section refers only to adults (16 and over) with a disability.

Travel trends by disabled people

Number of trips made in 2024 by age and disability status (DIS0401)

Chart 1: Number of trips per person by disability status and age: England, 2024 - DIS0401

Chart 1, which is a grouped bar chart, shows that in 2024:

• disabled adults (aged 16 years and over) in England made 712 trips per person, compared to 999 for non-disabled adults

• for those aged 60 or over, disabled adults made 35% fewer trips than non-disabled adults of the same age (653 trips per person compared to 1,011)

• disabled adults aged 16 to 59 made 22% fewer trips than non-disabled adults of the same age (774 trips per person compared to 995)

Trends in number of trips taken over time

Chart 2: Number of trips per person per year by disability status: England, 2018 to 2024 - DIS0401

Care should be taken when interpreting long-term trends, due to changes in the methodology of data collection, changes in travel behaviour and a reduction of data collected during 2020 to 2022, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chart 2, which is a grouped bar chart, shows that the average number of trips taken per person in 2024 compared to 2023:

• decreased by 4% for disabled adults (6% below 2019)

• remained similar for non-disabled adults (2% below 2019)

Despite the reduction in the average number of trips made since before the pandemic, the difference between disabled and non-disabled adults has remained similar over the last few years. Before COVID-19, disabled adults made around 25 to 30% fewer trips on average than non-disabled adults. This remained largely unchanged during the pandemic.

Mode of travel (DIS0402)

Chart 3: Percentage of all trips by main mode and disability status, aged 16 and over: England, 2024 - DIS0402

Chart 3, which is a grouped bar chart, shows that compared with non-disabled adults, disabled adults made:

• a higher proportion of their total trips (20% compared with 13%) as car passengers, while taking fewer trips as car drivers (40% compared with 47%)

• 59% of all trips by car in 2024, similar to non-disabled adults (60%)

• a similar proportion of their trips by bus (6%) compared with non-disabled adults (4%)

These figures are all similar to the previous year.

Other refers to all other forms of private and public transport. See Table DIS0402 for more information

Purpose of travel (DIS0403)

Chart 4: Percentage of all trips by trip purpose and disability status, aged 16 and over: England, 2024 (top 6 purposes) - DIS0403

More trip purposes can be seen in DIS0403

Chart 4 is a grouped bar chart, which shows that in 2024:

• the three most common trip reasons for disabled adults, in descending order, were shopping (27%), personal business (14%) and visiting friends at private home (10%)

• for non-disabled adults, the three most common trip reasons were shopping (20%), commuting (15%) and just walk (10%)

• the largest difference between disabled and non-disabled adults was in trips for commuting (8% compared to 15%)

Work status (DIS0406)

The difference between the average number of trips made per year varied considerably depending on the individual’s work status. In 2024:

• the average number of trips made by disabled adults (923) in full time work was 7% lower than non-disabled adults in full time work (992)

• for adults in part-time work, the average number of trips made by disabled adults was 18% lower than non-disabled adults (972 and 1,182 respectively)

• the average number of trips made by disabled adults who were retired or permanently sick was 40% lower than non-disabled adults (605 and 1,006 respectively)

Car access (DIS0405)

In 2024, 30% of disabled adults lived in households without access to a car (up 1 percentage point from 2023), compared with 14% of non-disabled adults (down 2 percentage points from 2023)

In 2024, the number of trips made per person varied based on car access and driving status.

For disabled adults:

• those with access to a car, and who were the main driver, made the most trips (941 trips per person )

• those living in a household without a car made the fewest trips (500 trips per person)

• those with access to a car but as non-drivers made a moderate number of trips (570 trips per person)

For non-disabled adults:

• those with access to a car, and who were the main driver, made the most trips (1,125 trips per person)

• those with access to a car but as non-drivers made the fewest trips (747 trips per person)

• those without access to a car made slightly more trips than non-drivers in car households (748 trips per person compared to 747)

Driving licence holding (DIS0407)

Chart 5: Percentage of adults holding a driving licence, by age and disability status: England, 2024 - DIS0407

Chart 5, which is a grouped bar chart, shows that:

• for disabled adults, the proportion that held a driving licence ranged from 55% to 64% across age groups, while for non-disabled adults it was higher, ranging from 76% to 85%

• 59% of disabled adults aged 17 or over held a full driving licence, compared with 79% of non-disabled adults in the same age group

• amongst both disabled and non-disabled adults, those with a full driving licence made more trips on average than those without one

Type of impairment (NTS0712)

Chart 6: Average miles travelled and trips made by impairment, aged 16 and over: England, 2024 - NTS0712

Those who reported more than one impairment are present in multiple categories. The total value counts all individuals with at least one reported impairment.

Chart 6, which is a multiple bar chart, shows that in 2024, of those who declared one or more impairments:

• the fewest miles on average were travelled by those who declared an impairment of speech (2,955) and vision (3,263)

• the fewest trips on average were made by those who declared an impairment of dexterity (617) and memory (627)

Sex (DIS0408)

In 2024, disabled adult females made an average of 725 trips per person, compared with disabled adult males who made an average of 698 trips per person.

There has been little difference in average trip numbers by sex for disabled adults since 2018.

Income (DIS0409)

Chart 7: Number of trips per person by disability status and income quintile: England, 2024 - DIS0409

Chart 7 is a grouped bar chart, which shows that in 2024, the difference in travel patterns between disabled and non-disabled adults varied by income quintile.

Disabled adults in the:

• lowest level income quintile made an average 630 trips per person (compared with non-disabled adults who made an average 884 trips per person)

• highest level income quintile made an average 822 trips per person (compared with non-disabled adults who made an average 1,027 trips per person)

• highest three income quintiles made between 19% to 25% fewer trips than non-disabled adults in the same income groups
• lowest two income quintiles made 29% and 31% less trips than the average number of trips made by non-disabled adults in the same income quintiles

When compared to 2023:

• the average number of trips made in 2024 decreased for disabled adults in most income quintiles, except for disabled adults in the lowest income quintile which remained similar and disabled adults in the highest quintile where it increased by 13% (729 to 822 trips per person)

• the average number of trips remained similar for non-disabled adults in all income quintiles

About these statistics

Background information

The 2024 NTS is the latest in a series of household surveys of personal travel by residents of England travelling within Great Britain, from data collected via interviews and a 7-day travel diary. The NTS is part of a continuous survey that began in 1988, following ad-hoc surveys from the 1960s, which enables analysis of patterns and trends. Some key uses of the data include describing patterns, for example, how different groups of people travel, monitoring trends in travel, including sustainable modes; assessing the potential equality impacts of different groups, and contributing to the evaluation of policies. These statistics on disability and people with mobility difficulties were previously published within the Disability, Accessibility and Blue Badge statistical collection. Statistics on Blue Badges will continue to be published separately. We are inviting your views on these adjustments and ask that you give us your feedback on this, directed to localtransport.statistics@dft.gov.uk. We always welcome feedback to help ensure that the survey meets the needs of users, and any feedback provided will help inform the future design and development of the survey. If you have any feedback, please email national.travelsurvey@dft.gov.uk or localtransport.statistics@dft.gov.uk

These official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in September 2018. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and are labelled ‘accredited official statistics’.

Further information is available, including:

• NTS data tables

• disability statistics data tables

• notes and definitions

• guidance and quality information

• future developments

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Contact details

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