Transport and environment

Our environmental and transport behaviours can be influenced by a number of factors. Our home life, whether we’re in employment, our wellbeing and the time we have available all impact on transport and environmental choices. Understanding Society helps researchers to investigate the links between these areas.

What data do Understanding Society collect?

Understanding Society is a study of people within their household context. We interview all members of the household over the age of ten and re-interview them annually, as the Study is longitudinal. A sub-set of the Understanding Society sample can be traced back to 1991 using the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). This design means we collect information which captures the interactions between people and their households with transport and environment behaviours; changing household circumstances, personal and household actions and evolving beliefs.

We ask children and adults regularly about their environmental behaviours and beliefs. Each year we ask households about their private transport and we regularly ask employees about their commutes to work.

Consultation on new environmental attitudes module

We consulted researchers on our questionnaire content on green behaviour and developed a new module on environmental attitudes. You can read the Working Paper with the outcome of the consultation here.

Tips for analysts

Index terms

To find out about the specific questions asked in the Study use the index terms where you can search for environment and transport variables including environmental issues, transport and values, opinions and attitudes.

Use the code creator

Create your own Stata code to extract the data you need from the EUL main survey. Save your variables, then use the code creator to generate your code. The code will allow you to create your own data file containing your variable selection, plus a handy set of commonly used sociodemographic variables and cross-sectional and longitudinal weights.

Questionnaire modules

The questionnaire modules show the areas covered in each wave of the Study and allow you to see the actual questions asked in the survey.

Need help?

Visit our new user pathway to explore the data and online resources or contact the User Support forum if you have a question for the Study team.

How socially just are taxes on air travel?

Professor Milena Buchs, from the University of Leeds, and Dr Giulio Mattioli, from Dortmund University, share their research on air travel taxes and frequent flier levies. Who do these measures impact most? Are there fairer ways to encourage green travel choices?

Blog: Do richer and poorer people own equally safe cars?

Vincenzo Carrieri, Apostolos Davillas and Victor Hugo de Oliveira on using Understanding Society linked to DVLA data to examine inequalities in traffic accident mortality.