Working from home has become “more embedded” among Londoners since the pandemic, according to the annual analysis of travel patterns in the capital.
The Travel in London report also revealed that Londoners are now making fewer than two trips out of their home each day – and spend as little as 54 minutes travelling on a daily basis.
The report, produced by Transport for London, said the number of Londoners encouraged to work from home had doubled from 0.78 million pre-pandemic to 1.57 million in 2023/24 – just over a third of all workers living in the capital.
It said: “Some 47 per cent of London resident workers can now work from home on either a permanent, regular or occasional basis compared to 30 per cent in 2019/20.
“Although not all take advantage of this there is now little doubt that greater hybrid working has become more embedded since the pandemic.”
TfL’s London Travel Demand Survey suggests that the average number of trips undertaken per person on an average day across a seven-day week continued to edge slowly downwards to 1.98 trips in 2023/24 – bucking the trend of a six per cent increase nationally.
The average distance travelled in 2023/24 was 11.3 kilometres per person per day (seven miles) – down 14 per cent compared with 2019/20.
The length of time that Londoners spent travelling fell from 56 minutes in 2022/23 to 54 minutes last year.
In 2005/6, when TfL first produced the Travel in London report, Londoners travelled for an average of 72 minutes per person per day.
The report covers trends and developments up to 2023 and into 2024. By summer this year, TfL said travel patterns appeared to be “broadly settled” after the pandemic.
It said only 35 per cent of London residents achieved Mayor Sadiq Khan’s active travel target of 20 minutes per day spent either walking or cycling – well below the pre-pandemic average of 42 per cent.
In 2023, travel demand - across all modes in the capital – rose to 95 per cent of the pre-pandemic baseline, up from 90 per cent in 2022.
TfL said commuter journeys remained concentrated between Tuesdays and Thursdays, though to a lesser extent than in 2022/23.
There were five per cent more journeys by bike in 2023, compared with 2022. The total – 1.33m cycle trips a day - was up 26 per cent on 2019.
However TfL’s “Boris bike” hire scheme suffered a 26 per cent fall in use, to 8.5 million hires.
TfL blamed this on the rise in dockless hire bikes, offered in London by Lime and Forest.
According to TfL, these firms “have between four and five times more cycles” than TfL – meaning between 48,000 and 60,000 dockless bikes are flooding the capital’s streets, far more than the private operators have disclosed.
The Elizabeth line is used for an average of 660,000 journeys a day, throughout the week, as of July 2024 – though some weekdays have seen peaks or 770,000 journeys.
TfL said that bus demand was at 89 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, the Tube was at 88 per cent, the London Overground at 97 per cent, the DLR at 85 per cent and the cable car was at 131 per cent.
The “modal share” – the crucial measure of how many journeys are walked, cycled or made by public transport rather than by private vehicle – rose one point to 63.2 per cent.
However this was still below the pre-pandemic baseline of 63.6 per cent in 2019. Mayor Sadiq Khan’s target is for this to reach 80 per cent by 2041.
Cycle mode share was 4.5 per cent in 2023, up from 3.6 per cent in 2019.
TfL said: “Average bus speeds in London during 2023/24 were 9.3 miles per hour, a marginal one per cent reduction on 2022/23, despite strenuous efforts to improve this.”
London’s population in 2023 was estimated to be 8.9 million.
TfL said that the “changing structure of London’s population”, notably a shift towards an older average age, could have longer-term implications for travel demand.
The number of electric vehicles in London rose to 205,000 between April and June this year. The number of public charging points reached 21,658 by October 2024, but remained unevenly spread across the city.
