2005 Work-related travel in Sweden 1995-2001
by Per Gustafson

Abstract
This is a first report from a research project on work-related travel in Sweden, financed by the Swedish council for working life and social research. The purpose of the report is to investigate to what extent people travel in order to perform their work tasks, how different categories of workers differ in their travel activity, and for what different purposes they travel. Travel between home and the normal place of work is not included in the analyses.

Data from national travel surveys, carried out by Statistics Sweden between 1995 and 2001, are used for the study. These surveys provide detailed information on travel activity from large national samples, but they also present some limitations with regard to the purpose of this report. One important limitation is that travel in the transport sector was registered only to a limited extent.

The empirical sections of the report primarily investigate the travel activity of different categories of workers, with regard to sociodemographic characteristics, work-related conditions and family situation. The analyses generally show that those in privileged positions in working life tend to travel more than those less privileged. Persons with university education, high incomes, and full-time employment (or self-employed) travel more than others, and men travel considerably more than women. Differences in travel activity are also found with regard to age, industrial classification, geographical region and telecommuting. As for family situation, differences in travel activity are relatively small with regard to civil status and whether or not the respondents have children. An analysis of the relationship between work-related travel and travel for other purposes shows no clear pattern.

In addition, the report suggests a typology of different kinds of work-related travel, based on the purpose of the journeys. The analysis indicates that different categories of workers do not only differ with regard to how much they travel, but also travel for different purposes and under different circumstances. However, such differences are captured only to a limited extent in the travel surveys, and are therefore pointed out as an interesting field for further empirical studies.

Keywords: work-related travel, business travel, national travel surveys, Sweden.