Privacy statement for access-national-travel-survey.service.gov.uk

The National Travel Survey (NTS) is a household survey designed to monitor long-term trends in personal travel and to inform the development of policy. It is the primary source of data on personal travel patterns by residents of England within Great Britain.

The survey collects information on how, why, when and where people travel as well as factors affecting travel (e.g. car availability and driving licence holding). View our National Travel Survey privacy statement for more information on how your personal data is processed in relation to this survey.

Who carries out the survey?

The survey is commissioned by the Department for Transport and the survey is completed by experienced research interviewers from the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen).

What is the Travel Record or Travel Diary?

After the initial interview is carried out as part of the NTS, all members of the household are invited to keep a seven-day travel record, or diary, recording key information about their journeys such as the purpose, the travel time, mode and the type and cost of tickets. Participants fill this in throughout the week. Participants who accept the invitation to fill in a travel record have the option to complete the record via an online web-service that they access via an email address and password. At the end of the week the research interviewer will check over the participant entries before submitting the collected data for processing. Participants who are unable to complete their travel record online also have the option to fill in their travel details on a paper form, which is later collected and entered into NatCen’s digital system.

Who develops and maintains the online version of the Travel Diary?

The Department for Transport have commissioned a Crown Commercial Supplier called Ghost (Digital) Limited to develop the online version of the Travel Diary. They are working with NatCen and the DfT to build, test and maintain the service.

What kinds of travel are covered by the Travel Diary?

We are interested in all the different types of journey people make and how often they do so. This includes journeys to school or work, shopping trips and trips for leisure or social purposes. Both local and long-distance travel are covered, as are all forms of transport (such as cars, buses, trains, cycling and walking).

What will happen to any information given?

We treat information in the strictest confidence under current data protection legislation. Data held within or collected by the online travel record includes a name, which can be an initial or a nickname, whether each person is under 16 or not, details of household vehicles and drivers, and data on trips taken by each person over the course of seven days. The only personal data held by the online travel record will be email addresses and a unique identifier. Email addresses entered into the online travel record are only used to sign in to the service, are stored in a separate area, and will not be kept for any other purpose. Any other personal details including full names and addresses and interview responses will be held by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) and will not be stored in the online travel record. Further details can be found in The National Travel Survey privacy statement which sets out the legal basis for the collection and processing of the data.

Data collected through the online travel record will be stored securely within the diary system. After the interviewer confirms that a household’s records are complete, the data is then securely transferred to NatCen. After transfer, email addresses will be retained for 60 days, and the raw travel data collected will be retained for 200 days and then destroyed by deletion and overwriting.