As per other posts, you will need to click on maps to see the detail/animation.

Note: I have mode share data at work place locations at destination zone level for 2006 (smallest resolution available) but only at SA2 level for 2011. For the purposes of direct comparison, I have mapped 2006 destination zones to SA2s based on the centroid of each 2006 destination zone (so not a perfect mapping – see here for a comparison map).

See also an earlier similar post covering 2006 journey to work data for Melbourne, and a similar post covering journeys to workplaces in Brisbane.

Employment density

Firstly, what does the employment density of Melbourne look like? If I had travel zone data for both years I’d be able to draw a much higher resolution picture, but for now I will have to suffice with SLA/SA2 employment density. Note that 2011 SA2s are generally smaller than 2006 SLAs so this isn’t a direct comparison.

A lot of the differences you can see between 2006 and 2011 are to do with the change in boundaries, not necessarily changes on the ground. For example, there are many more SA2s than SLAs in the Doncaster area, which has meant the 2011 data shows a slightly dense area around Doncaster Hill that washed out in the 2006 data.

I do note the absence of many relatively dense employment areas on the western side of Melbourne.

Mode share by workplace location

Public transport

Public transport mode share was highest in the CBD, then for areas around the CBD and stretching a little more to the inner east. Box Hill stands out as a suburban location with a relatively high mode share (13% in 2011).

Here is a map that shows the mode shift for each SA2 (bearing in mind that there isn’t a perfect mapping from 2006 destination zones to 2011 SA2s):

The biggest mode shifts to public transport were:

Most of the above are in the inner city, but there are exceptions of Watsonia, Mount Evelyn and Springvale South (all off a very small base in 2006).

Some interesting rises in the suburbs include:

• Doncaster 5.5% to 8.3%, probably related to the introduction of several SmartBus services
• Frankston North 2.6% to 5.0%, again probably influenced by the introduction of SmartBus services
• Forest Hill 5.2% to 7.8% (not sure why)
• Mill Park North 1.7% to 4.2% (note the South Morang rail extension was not open in 2011, but SmartBus services had been introduced by the 2011 census)
• Box Hill 10.2% to 12.7%, possibly related to upgraded SmartBus services
• Noble Park 3.0% to 5.4% (not sure why)

Some interesting declines include:

• Montrose – there are boundary differences between 2006 and 2011 with many more jobs counted in 2011.
• Cairnlea 6.6% to 2.4% (probably because Victoria University St Albans Campus is mapped to this SA2 in 2006 but not 2011)
• Carlton North – Princes Hill 13.1% to 10.4% (which also had an increase in walking and cycling)
• Port Melbourne 14.7% to 12.6% (not sure why, perhaps more people walked to work from the increasingly dense local residential area)

As an aside, here are 2011 public transport mode share for journeys to work at major Australian airports (where there is an “Airport” named SA2):

• Sydney 13.9%
• Melbourne 3.8% (up from 2.5% in 2006)
• Brisbane 3.1%
• Adelaide 2.6%
• Perth 1.7%
• Darwin 1.7%

Train

Train mode share was highest in the CBD and surrounding inner city areas. Notably, mode shares were relatively higher in the inner east and south-east (particularly Caulfield, Camberwell and Hawthorn) compared to other axes.

Here is the mode shift to trains between 2006 and 2011:

The biggest rises were in Docklands (up 9.2%), South Yarra (up 5.6%) and then a few other inner suburban destinations.

In 2011, 47% of journeys to work in Greater Melbourne involving train were to the Melbourne CBD. This rises to 59% when adding Southbank and Docklands.

Tram

Unfortunately I do not have 2006 data for “any journey involving tram” below the SLA level, so here is the 2011 picture at SA2 level, with the tram network shown as green lines:

I must say I was surprised by the CBD figure of only 14.9% (and I did double-check the data).

Tram mode share was highest in the SA2s of Albert Park and South Yarra West (which straddle the St Kilda Road office precinct which has very high tram frequencies). Other work destinations with higher tram mode shares included Parkville, Carlton, Fitzroy and South Melbourne.

Perhaps there was some under-reporting of tram journeys as a “secondary” mode in people’s journey to work? In Parkville (which includes the main University of Melbourne campus, the hospitals precinct and Royal Park), there were more people reporting only train (934) than train+tram (772) and train+bus (275). I would expect most of those jobs to be remote from Royal Park station, and the southern section of the SA2 is at least a 1 km walk from Melbourne Central train station. Another example is South Melbourne – all of which is more than 1.2 km from a train station, yet 1240 people reported only train in their journey to work, while 894 reported train+tram. While of course some people will walk longer distances from train stations to work, the numbers seem a little high to me.

37% of journeys to work in Greater Melbourne involving tram were to a destination in the Melbourne CBD. If you add in Southbank, Docklands, Parkville and South Melbourne the share goes to 56%.

Bus

Again, I do not have comparable data for 2006, so here is a 2011 map:

Bus mode share was highest in Malvern East (which includes Chadstone Shopping Centre), followed by Doncaster, Maribyrnong (which includes Highpoint Shopping Centre), Carlton and the Melbourne CBD. Mount Evelyn is curiously high at 5.8%, with 45 people travelling by bus to workplaces there.

Only 21% (9905) of journeys to Greater Melbourne workplaces involving bus were to the CBD, with the next highest SA2 counts in Docklands (1175), Clayton (1160), Dandenong (1157), Southbank (1071) and Parkville (1046). This would suggest that growth in CBD employment is unlikely to be one of the major factors in bus patronage growth in Melbourne (unlike train and tram).

Cycling

Due to the nature of the data I have for 2006, this analysis excludes journeys also involving public transport or trucks (yes, there were 39 people who said they travelled to work by truck and bicycle in Australia in 2011!):

Cycling to work boomed in inner Melbourne between 2006 and 2011, particularly to workplaces in the inner north, with the Parkville SA2 recording the highest bicycle share.

Here’s a view of the mode shift to bicycle:

The biggest mode shifts towards bicycle were for workplaces in the inner northern suburbs, while relatively small mode shifts away from bicycle were observed in the outer eastern suburbs and around Aspendale to Carrum.

I should point out that the census is conducted in winter (August), and warmer weather bicycle mode shares of journeys to work are likely to be higher.

Walking (only)

Walking mode share is a mixed bag across the city. High walking mode shares are evident in Parkville, Carlton North/Princes Hill, around St Kilda, the Simpson Army Barracks (in Yallambie), but also some rural areas. In the Koo Wee Rup SA2, 8.7% of employees walked to work, 41% of whom were in the “Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing” industry.

The lowest walking only mode shares were at the major airports (Melbourne, Essendon and Moorabbin), some industrial areas and generally in the outer suburbs of Melbourne.

Here is mode shift to walking:

Mode shift to walking was more common in the northern suburbs and some outer eastern suburbs, but not so much in the inner city. Mode shift away from walking only to work was observed in many outer eastern and north-eastern suburbs.

Note: the neighbouring SA2s of Wheelers Hill and Glen Waverly East each showed mode shifts in opposite directions. This is almost certainly to do with the Police Academy being mapped into a different SA2 in 2006 due to the imperfect mapping between 2006 destination zones and 2011 SA2s.

Sustainable transport

I’ve defined sustainable transport here as any journey involving public transport, plus any journey that only involved walking and/or cycling.

Sustainable transport mode share was highest in the CBD and immediate surrounding areas. Sustainable transport was relatively higher for workplaces in the inner north, east and south-east compared to the inner west.

Mode shift to sustainable transport was most prevalent in the inner north and inner south.

Some interesting suburban mode shifts to sustainable transport include:

• Upwey - Tecoma (mainly walking)
• Dandenong North (mostly a mix of walking and public transport)
• Gladstone Park - Westmeadows 3.1% (most of which was public transport mode shift, possibly relating to the introduction of SmartBus services),
• Altona Meadows (mostly public transport, perhaps relating to the City West waste purification plant being mapped into this SA2 only in 2006 but this is not clear)
• Watsonia (possibly a result of destination zone to SA2 mapping issues )

Commuting to the central city, 2011

The central city is an important destination as it has the highest employment density and public transport is best-placed to compete against the car. For analysis in this section I am using the combination of the Melbourne CBD, Southbank, Docklands, Carlton, North Melbourne and East Melbourne SA2s as my definition of the “central city” (which is different to other posts on this blog – I am deliberately choosing a larger area to get a better sense of origins and mode shares).

Here’s a map showing the proportion (%) of commuters who had a destination of central Melbourne in 2011 (by place of usual residence at SA1 geography):

The prevalence of the CBD as a work destination is almost directly proportional to the distance people live from the CBD, although rates are relatively higher around train lines.

Notable outliers include:

• Point Cook, Tarneit, Caroline Springs in the western suburbs with a higher central city share, possibly reflecting a workers-to-jobs imbalance in the outer western suburbs, particularly for white-collar workers (I might explore that more in a future post)
• East Doncaster, which has a relatively high central city share, possibly as a result of frequent express bus services to the city
• A pocket of St Kilda East and Caulfield North between the Sandringham and Caulfield rail lines that has a low share despite being relatively close to the city (not sure why that might be)

The next map shows the share of central city commuters who used public transport in their journey to work (by home location). I’ve only shaded SA1s with 20 or more central city commuters (which I admit is quite small for calculating mode shares).

Note: I have not filtered SA1s by density on the following maps (unlike others), so some low density SA1s are included.

Public transport mode share was particularly high for those in middle to outer suburbs (where such a long drive would probably not be fun or cheap).

It was lowest around:

• the city centre itself (more on that in a moment)
• Western Kew in the inner east (a relatively wealthy area)
• Sanctuary Lakes in the south-western suburbs (largely remote from public transport in 2011)
• Pockets of Caroline Springs
• Areas of Templestowe, Donvale, Research and North Warrandyte in the east-north-eastern suburbs
• Areas north of Sunbury
• Areas around Keilor East and Avondale Heights (like Kew, close to the CBD but remote from train lines)
• Greenvale (a relatively wealthy area)
• Brighton and Toorak (very wealthy areas)

Here’s the share of people who only used private motorised transport to commute to the CBD:

This map is largely the inverse of the previous map, except for areas near the inner city, suggesting active transport is being used by residents of the central city to get to work in the central city, as you might expect.

Finally, here is a map showing the density of people who work in the central city:

This map effectively combines population density with the proportion of workers travelling to the central city. The density falls away with distance from the city (quite markedly south of Elwood), but there are outliers in pockets of Carnegie, Point Cook, East Doncaster, Deer Park, Mitcham, Bundoora, and Heatherton (not all of which are connected to the city by high quality public transport).

A similar analysis could be conducted to other employment centres, although numbers per SA1 will be much smaller, and it would be time-consuming.

If you spot any other interesting changes and/or have explanations for them, I would welcome comments.

Definition of city centres

First up, its important to understand what data I’m analysing. In 2011 the ABS restructured their geography for census and other data. While this change brings many benefits, it creates some challenges when comparing data from previous years. In the analysis I generally compare Statistical Local Areas (SLAs) with Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2) geography, but sometimes I’m just comparing Local Government Areas (LGAs).

Here are the areas I have used as the “central city” for each of the five large Australian cities:

Sydney

The “Sydney – Haymarket – The Rocks” SA2 which is very similar (but not entirely identical) to the “Sydney (C) – inner” SLA. There are only minor variations on the fringe of this area. On the following maps, the dark green area is included in all years, the red areas are only included in 2011, and the blue areas are only included in 2001 and 2006.

Melbourne

The “Melbourne” SA2 and the “Melbourne (C) – Inner” SLA, the former being larger as it includes a triangle of land between Peel/William Street, Victoria Street and Latrobe Street. City of Melbourne CLUE data from 2010 suggests 7.6% of jobs in the SA2 are in this triangle (and not included in the SLA). A previous post found that 2006 journey to work public transport mode shares in this triangle were around 56-61% whereas most of the CBD was around 60-70%. So this study is likely to understate increases in public transport mode share for central Melbourne.

Melbourne+

As Southbank and Docklands include significant employment density, I have created a second definition of central Melbourne that includes these areas, and labelled it “Melbourne+”. Note this area also gains the triangle north of the CBD for 2011 due to boundary changes. While arguably I should also include East Melbourne, data is not available at that resolution for 2001 and 2006, which would mean I would need to expand to include all of the City of Melbourne which is starting to be a lot more than the central city core.

The following map shows the Melbourne and Melbourne+ areas: the green area is included for all years, the red area is only included in 2011, and the yellow area is Southbank/Docklands, that is included in all years for Melbourne+ only.

Brisbane

The “Brisbane City” SA2, which precisely covers the “City – inner” and “City – remainder” SLAs combined. In 2006, “City – inner” accounted for 62% of the entire SA2 employment population, but the public transport mode share of the overall combined area was only about 1% lower than “City – inner”.

This Brisbane SA2 area is shown in green on the following map (the area in yellow represents Fortitude Valley and South Brisbane, referred to later in this post).

Adelaide

The City of Adelaide LGA (which includes North Adelaide). The new SA2 geography splits central Adelaide and North Adelaide, but historical data is not available at smaller resolution than the entire LGA. This area is shown in green in the following map:

Perth

The City of Perth LGA. While there are smaller SLAs and SA2s, there is weak correspondence between the old and new geographies so I had to use local government boundaries instead. This area is shown in green on the following map:

Mode shares for journeys to work in city centres

Previous posts have looked at public transport mode share overall for cities, and journey to work by work location for some cities (Brisbane 2006 and 2011, Sydney 2006, Melbourne 2006 with more to come). Here’s a look at the mode split for city centre areas (as defined above).

Note:

• as discussed above the central areas for Melbourne and Melbourne+ in 2011 are larger that for in 2001 and 2006
• Adelaide “2011i” refers to central Adelaide excluding North Adelaide.

The chart shows public and active transport mode share increasing in all cities, with the exception of Sydney where there was an increase in private transport use between 2001 and 2006. Public transport dominates in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, with Perth now roughly evenly split between private and public transport, and private transport still being in the majority in central Adelaide. Active transport (walk/cycle) has posted significant gains in all city centres, with Melbourne having the highest share (9.0% in 2011) followed by Sydney (7.9%) and Brisbane (7.8%), with Perth the lowest (6.4%).

The above chart shows central Perth has having the strongest mode shift to public transport (in no small part due to the opening of the Mandurah rail line in late 2007), followed by Brisbane, and (perhaps surprisingly) then Melbourne (although Melbourne’s poorer performance may be related to the change in geographic boundaries as discussed above). Adelaide and Sydney were the laggards of public transport mode shift between 2006 and 2011.

Again, Perth is the stand-out in mode shift away from private transport in 2011.

Here is another look on the above mode split data with a little more detail, assigning each journey a “main mode” (precedence given to train, bus, any other public transport, vehicle driver, vehicle passengers, bicycle, in that order).

This chart shows trains accounting for around half of all journeys to work in central Sydney and Melbourne and buses being a significant mode in all cities except Melbourne where trams have a significant share. Notably Melbourne’s tram mode share is smaller than all the other cities’ bus mode shares. I note that Sydney is now moving to light rail to try to alleviate CBD bus congestion. Trains delivered less than 10% of central Adelaide commuters to work.

Vehicle passenger journeys are much more common in Adelaide (8.2%) and least common in Sydney, but are in decline in all cities, suggesting a move away from car pooling.

Central Melbourne is the leader in cycling with 3.3% of journeys primarily by bicycle, with Sydney the lowest bicycle share (1.4%).

Number of car journeys to city centres

The following chart shows the absolute change in the number of people whose primary method of journey to work was vehicle driver.

*Caution should be applied for Melbourne, as the 2011 geographic area included additional area that in 2006 (and that areas had a lower public transport mode share in 2006).

The stand-out result is Melbourne+, which indicates a lot more vehicle driver commuter trips generated as Docklands and Southbank employment centres expand. Public transport’s mode share for Southbank and Docklands combined increased from 39.4% in 2006 to 46.8% in 2011, but this was not enough to stop an increase in the overall number of vehicle driver trips. My understanding is that parking costs are generally cheaper in Southbank and Docklands compared to the CBD core.

There was a decline in city centre commuter car parking requirements in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth between 2006 and 2011, while central Adelaide had a substantial increase in vehicle driver commuters (despite some mode shift to public transport), no doubt putting pressure on traffic congestion.

Share of jobs in city centres

Are jobs within metropolitan areas concentrating within city centres? The following chart shows the percentage of metropolitan jobs located within the city centre areas defined above, as well as a wider city centre definition for Brisbane.

Comparing cities is dangerous as there is not a consistent definition of city centre. What the data does show is that central Perth is reducing its share of metropolitan jobs, central Adelaide’s share seems relatively static, central Sydney’s share is growing, and for Melbourne and Brisbane, the central city share is growing but only if you also include nearby employment-focussed areas (Southbank and Docklands for Melbourne, South Brisbane and Fortitude Valley for Brisbane).

In the above analysis I have used my own definitions for metropolitan areas, as ABS have changed from using Statistical Divisions to sometimes larger Greater Capital City Statistical Areas for metropolitan areas. See the appendix at the end of this post for how I have defined metropolitan regions.

Comparing journeys to work inside and outside city centres

Here is a chart comparing 2011 public transport mode shares for journeys to work inside city centres, outside city centres, and for each city overall:

The differences are very stark, but as you might expect as it is generally easier to drive and cheaper to park at workplaces outside the city centre (plus public transport service quality is often lower). Note that many city fringe areas are included in the “outside city centre” figures, and public transport mode shares are generally higher in these areas, and lower further out. You can see the mode share for trips to workplaces outside “Melbourne+” (Melbourne + Southbank + Docklands) is only 9%.

Here’s the trend for public transport mode share to destinations outside city centres, showing increases between 2006 and 2011 for all cities except Adelaide.

The following chart shows that mode shifts to public transport have been much higher in central city areas for Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide, but not Sydney (low mode shift to both city centre and elsewhere) and Melbourne. Mode shift to public transport outside the “Melbourne+” city centre was just over 1%.

Growth in public transport for journeys to work versus all purposes

The following chart compares the growth in the absolute number of people choosing public transport to get to work (between census 2006 and 2011), versus overall growth in public transport patronage (comparing financial years 2010-11 to 2005-06).

Note: For Brisbane, the overall patronage growth figure refers to all of South East Queensland (SEQ).

In all cities except Melbourne, the number of public transport journeys to work increased faster than overall patronage, suggesting growth in public transport use for other trip purposes was weaker.

Do city centres dominate journeys to work by public transport?

We think of city centres as the main workplace location where people would use public transport to get to work. But is this accurate?

The answer is yes in the smaller cities, no in Sydney, and in Melbourne it depends on whether you include Southbank and Docklands.

Conclusions

We have seen that:

• Public transport is the dominant mode of journeys to work in city centres in the larger cities, but a minority mode in central Adelaide
• Perth has shown the greatest shift to public transport for travel to the central city
• Melbourne has shown the greatest shift to public transport for journeys to work overall
• Melbourne has the highest active transport (and bicycle-only) mode share for journeys to city centres
• In Brisbane, Perth and probably the Melbourne CBD, there was a net decline in private vehicles being driven to city centres for work between 2001 and 2011
• Public transport’s share of journeys to workplaces outside city centres is much lower in all cities
• Mode shift to public transport for journeys to work was higher for city centres except Sydney and Melbourne
• Growth in public transport use for journeys to work was higher than overall public transport patronage growth in all cities except Melbourne
• The central city share of all metropolitan jobs is increasing in Sydney, Melbourne (when Southbank and Docklands are included), and to a lessor extent Adelaide. Central Perth and Brisbane are declining in their share of metropolitan jobs.
• Most public transport journeys to work in the smaller cities are to the city centre, but this is not the case for Sydney and Melbourne (without Southbank and Docklands)

Appendix: Common definitions of city metropolitan regions 2001-2011

The change in ABS geography makes it difficult to have a fair time series estimate of the total number of jobs in each metropolitan area. To try for maximum consistency across the change, I have calculated the number of jobs in each city as follows:

Melbourne: Melbourne Statistical Division, plus Shire of Yarra Ranges – Part B (ie includes all of the Shire of Yarra Ranges)

Perth: Perth Statistical Division plus the City of Mandurah (which was incorporated into the Greater Perth definition in 2011)

Brisbane: The Greater Brisbane Capital City Geographic Area, which for 2006 was approximated by the Brisbane Statistical Division plus the SLAs of Beaudesert Part C, Beenleigh, Bethania-Waterford, Boonah, Eagleby, Edens Landing-Holmview, Esk, Kilcoy, Laidley, Mt Warren Park and Wolfdene-Bahrs Scrub.

Sydney: there are very few differences between the Sydney Statistical Division and Greater Sydney, so I assumed equivalence.

Adelaide: All LGAs in the Adelaide Statistical Division, including all parts of the Adelaide Hills Council.

In my recent post on city level mode share changes we saw that Sydney had a 2.1% mode shift to public transport between 2006 and 2011. This post will uncover which areas shifted the most. For more analysis of patterns in the 2006 journey to work, see an earlier post.

The following animations show various mode shares for journeys to work from Census Collection Districts for 2006 and Statistical Area Level 1 (SA1) for 2011, with a minimum density of 3 workers travelled per hectare. These are the smallest geographies available for each census. All the data is by place of usual residence. I’ve animated each image to alternate between 2006 and 2011, so you can gaze at them and spot the changes. You’ll need to click on them to enlarge and see the animation.

Public transport

A shift to public transport is particularly evident in the north-western suburbs between Blacktown, Castle Hill and Epping. This is like to be a result of the new T-Ways (busways) between Parramatta, Blacktown and Rouse Hill, and express bus services from the area to the city along bus lanes on the M2 motorway.

There is also some evidence of mode shift along the Cronulla rail line.

Many new patches of green appear in the 2011 map which were blank in the 2006 map. I’m not sure if these are a result of the changed ABS geography (CD to SA1), or new transit orientated developments (I suspect mostly the former).

Sustainable transport (only)

This map excludes those who used private transport to reach public transport.

As well as the above public transport shifts, shifts to sustainable transport are evident around Turramurra and Forestville in the northern suburbs.

Train

Areas with a noticeable shift to train include Hornsby, Quakers Hill and Epping.

There is little change evident around the new Epping-Chatswood rail line, other than for a small residential pocket near Macquarie University station. Most of the stations on the new line are surrounded by non-residential land uses and show up as white. There has been quite a substantial impact on the public transport share of journeys to workplaces along the new line, which you’ll see in an upcoming post.

Bus

A shift to bus is most evident in the region between Parramatta and Castle Hill (as mentioned above).

Ferry

(ferry wharves are shown as blue dots)

Shifts to ferry are most evident around Manly, Balmain, and Watsons Bay (which is a little odd as it does not have peak period services).

Train and bus

43,815 people in Greater Sydney travelled to work by train and bus (and no other modes except walking) in 2011, up from 34,377 in 2006.

Journeys involving train and bus remain most heavily concentrated around Bondi Beach, where special cheap integrated train/bus link tickets are available. Areas with some shift to train and bus travel include Epping, south of Blacktown, Bossley and St Johns Park (served by the Liverpool-Parramatta T-way), and North Parramatta.

Multiple public transport modes

Here is a summary over the Greater Sydney area of journeys using single and multiple public transport modes (using place of enumeration data and thus losing journeys with ferry + non PT modes):

Sydney’s public transport mode share went backwards between 2001 and 2006, particularly for multi-modal public transport trips. There was a strong shift towards public transport between 2006 and 2011, with roughly equal growth in single mode and multi-mode public transport journeys. The data doesn’t tell us whether this represents a shift from single mode to multi-modal journeys (following the change to the fare system in April 2010).

Mode shift to public transport overall

Here’s a map showing the overall mode share to public transport in Statistical Local Areas (SLAs), the smallest geography where data is available for both 2006 and 2011 (you’ll need to click to enlarge).

The biggest mode shifts are in different locations when aggregated at the SLA level. The biggest shifts were in Hornsby south, Concord, Manly, Parramatta north west and Baulkham Hills. I suspect the large mode shift in Hornsby south is a result of the new train line connecting this area to the major employment areas around Macquarie Park.

Campbelltown south was the only SLA to record a mode shift away from public transport.

Walking only

I cannot spot any significant shifts between 2006 and 2011.

Cycling

There were quite noticeable shifts to cycling in the inner south and around Manly. The total number of people cycling as part of their journey to workplaces in Sydney went from 12,128 in 2006 to 17,838 in 2011.

Here is an enlargement of the inner suburban areas:

Cycling’s mode share peaked at 21% in a pocket of Redfern between Telopea Street and Phillip Street, closely followed by a pocket of Dulwich Hill around Kintore Street at 20%.

I’m sure other people will find more patterns in these maps – please comment on any interesting finds.

ABS data about mode shares at work place locations is available for Statistical Local Areas (SLA) in 2006, and for Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2) geography in 2011. These are the smallest available areas in each year, and unfortunately SLA level data was not available at the time of posting for 2011 (to enable a direct comparison on the same areas).

Fortunately for Brisbane, there is a lot of similarity between the two sets of boundaries (some SLAs split, some combined, some restructured).

The following maps alternate between 2006 and 2011 using the slightly different boundaries. You will need to click on them to enlarge and see the animation.

Caution is needed when making inferences when the geographies change as different areas will have different numbers of employees. For example: If two SLAs with 2% and 10% mode shares (in 2006) were combined into a new (2011) SA2 area with 11% mode share (in 2011), it doesn’t mean that mode share actually changed from 2% to 11% in the first of the SLAs. It may be that many more people were employed in the SLA with 10% mode share and actually very little changed overall.

Employment density

Firstly, what does the employment density of Brisbane look like? If I had the travel zone data available (as per Sydney), I’d be able to draw a much higher resolution picture, but for now I will have to suffice with SLA/SA2 employment density:

A lot of the differences you can see between 2006 and 2011 are to do with the change in boundaries, not necessarily changes on the ground. For example, there are many more SA2s than SLAs in the Ipswich area, which has meant the 2011 data shows a slightly dense area in the centre of Ipswich.

Some places where the SLA and SA2s are the same and a change in employment density is evident include reductions in New Farm, West End, Mitchelton, Wynnum, and Chermside West, and an increase in Enoggara.

Mode share by workplace location

I’ve zoomed in on the inner parts of Brisbane so you can see the inner city details for mode shares (apologies for the lack of place names – I figured the numbers showing the mode shares might be more interesting).

First up, public transport mode share:

Public transport mode share was highest in the CBD, then for areas around the CBD and stretching to a little more to the inner south-west. Curiously, public transport mode share was relatively high in suburban Carindale (the patch of yellow turned green in the “middle” eastern suburbs) and Nundah in the middle northern suburbs.

Significant rises in PT mode share were evident in the following places:

• Fairfield/Dutton Park – which went from 7%/9% to 23%, which is probably related to the Boggo Road busway and green bridge and route 196 BUZ route.
• Chelmer (6% to 12%) – perhaps related to train frequency upgrades on the line to Darra
• Teneriffe (10% to 20%) – although it was absorbed into Newstead-Bowen Hills in 2011 the two SLAs combined into one SA2 had a similar number of employees in 2006. In 2011 Teneriffe was served by a new CityCat ferry terminal, and bus services were upgraded (including the CityGlider bus).
• Kelvin Road – Herston, which went from 14%/16% to 21% (including the growing Kelvin Grove Urban Village and bolstered by the northern busway)

Next is active transport:

There was very little change in active transport mode share by destination. The exceptions were St Lucia (including University of Queensland) which increased from 13% to 16%, and Highgate Hill which went from 9% to 13%. These areas are connected by the new green bridge (buses, walkers and cyclists only) which would have made it easier to reach these places by active transport.

Enoggera records 13% in both 2006 and 2011, which is explained by the existence of a major army barracks there. I’m not sure why the Anstead area had a 15% mode share in 2006 (it was blended out in 2011 with the change of geography).

Finally, here is sustainable transport mode share (public transport + active only transport):

Suburban destinations with high sustainable transport mode share include:

• Robertson (which includes Griffith University went from 13% to 17%)
• Carindale (eastern suburbs, 14% to 17%)
• Taigum/Fitzgibbon (north suburbs, steady 12%)
• Mount Ommaney (south-western suburbs, 13% in 2006 but unclear in 2011 due to larger SA2)

The significant rises are covered by the discussion above.

Commuting to the CBD

The Central Business District (CBD) is an important destination as it has the highest employment density, and public transport is probably best placed to compete against the car. For this analysis I am defining the “CBD” as the Brisbane City SA2, which is bounded by Hale Street in the west, Wickham Terrace in the north, Boundary Street in the north-east, and the Brisbane River (here is a map). That’s probably bigger than what you might call the core CBD, but unfortunately I cannot obtain 2011 data at a smaller geography.

Brisbane’s CBD accounted for 15.5% of Greater Brisbane journey to work destinations in 2011, and 14.1% of Brisbane Statistical Division destinations in 2006 (Greater Brisbane is slightly larger than the Brisbane Statistical Division). There were 9.5% more journey to work destinations in the CBD in 2011 compared to 2006.

Here’s a map showing the proportion of commuters who had a destination of the Brisbane CBD in 2011 (by home location at SA1 geography):

The prevalence of the CBD as a work destination is almost directly proportional to the distance people live from the CBD, with the notable exception of Springfield in the southern suburbs.

The next map shows the portion of CBD commuters who used public transport in their journey to work (by home location). I’ve only shaded SA1s with 20 or more CBD commuters, which is quite small for calculating mode shares.

Note: I have not filtered SA1s by density on these maps (unlike others), so some low density SA1s to the south-west of the CBD are included in the following maps.

Public transport mode share was particularly high for those further from the CBD (where such a long drive would probably not be fun or cheap). It was lowest around the CBD itself (presumably the locals just walked to work), a few scattered suburban locations, and around the wealthy and low density Pullenvale area to the south-west (served only infrequently by public transport but not that far from the CBD).

Here’s the share of people who only used private motorised transport to commute to the CBD:

Pockets of high private motorised transport mode share include:

• Hamilton/Albion
• Bardon
• Kenmore
• Fig Tree Pocket
• Capalaba
• Gumdale
• Tingalpa
• Yeronga
• Indooroopilly
• Pullenvale

I understand that many of these are relatively wealthy areas.

Mode shift in journeys to the CBD

How have mode shares changed for journeys to work in the CBD?

Public and active transport increased their mode shares considerably over the 10 years. In fact, the Brisbane CBD had the second highest mode shift to public transport (in percentage terms) of major Australian CBDs (behind Perth, more on that in a future post).

The absolute number of car driver trips fell from 26,397 in 2001 to 23,244 in 2011, while the number of public transport trips shot up from 47,208 in 2001 to 65,570 in 2011 – a 39% increase (a very similar increase to Melbourne and Adelaide). In the same time, South East Queensland public transport patronage grew by 59%.

The vast majority of people who used public transport to commute to the CBD only used one mode of public transport. However, the percentage of people using multiple public transport modes rose from 2.7% in 2001 to 2.9% in 2006 and 3.6% in 2011, suggesting integrated ticketing may be influencing public transport travel behaviour. That said, Brisbane’s CBD still had the lowest rate of multiple public transport mode journeys to work of the CBDs of Australia’s five biggest cities (more on that soon).

I’d like to acknowledge Jane Hornibrook for assistance with this post.

In my post on city level mode share changes we saw that Brisbane had a 1.2% mode shift to public transport between 2006 and 2011. This post will uncover which areas shifted the most.

The following animations show various mode shares for journeys to work from census collection districts for 2006 and Statistical Area Level 1 (SA1) for 2011. These are the smallest geographies available for each census. All the data is by place of usual residence.

I’ve animated each image to alternate between 2006 and 2011, so you can gaze at them and spot the changes. You’ll need to click on them to enlarge and see the animation.

Public transport

You can mode shift in the inner suburbs, The Gap, the Albany Creek area, around Shorncliffe, the middle southern suburbs (between Yeerongpilly and Woodridge), and the strip towards Shailer Park. Much less mode shift is evident in the outer suburbs, particularly Ipswitch, Victoria Point, Cleveland, and Redcliffe. The Springfield growth area shows higher mode shares than average for urban fringe areas without heavy rail.

Sustainable transport (only)

This map excludes those who used private transport to reach public transport. In most outer suburbs of Brisbane, it seems the vast majority of people are using private motorised transport as part of their journey to work, including to get to train or busway stations.

Train

Significant mode shift can be seen along the Ferny Grove line, the Shorncliffe line, and the line towards Darra. I can see little mode shift on other lines.

There was modest mode shift towards train in the Inala area (near the Richlands rail line that opened in early 2011). Perhaps it will take some time for commuting patterns to change to take advantage of the rail line?

Note that a significant share of people in Springfield used trains. They will be getting a train closer to home when the rail line extension from Richlands to Springfield opens in 2014. It appears that only a few of them got to the train by feeder bus, as the next map shows.

Bus

There was significant shift to bus use in the southern suburbs, particularly around the South East Busway (shown in purple). This busway opened in 2001, but it seems mode shift has continued. There was also strong shift in South Brisbane and the West End (where the high frequency CityGlider bus was introduced), out to The Gap, to the inner south-west, the inner northern suburbs between the train lines, and south through Calamvale (north of Browns Plains, now served by high service “BUZ“ bus routes using the South East Busway). There was little shift to using buses in the outer suburbs, other than in the Browns Plains area which is now serviced by BUZ routes.

Ferry

There are some significant changes, particularly around the West End (south-west of the CBD) where ferry mode share collapsed (perhaps due to increased bus service levels and disruptions to ferries following the 2011 floods). Ferry mode share also dropped in the St Lucia area, and for students on the University of Queensland campus. I suspect this might be to do with increased bus service levels.

There was strong growth in ferry mode share in Bulimba (north-east of the CBD), following the reopening of the Apollo Road Ferry Wharf in 2008 (which on these maps seems to have been a success) (Apollo Road wharf is the furthest downstream ferry wharf on the south bank).

Train and bus

Train and bus journeys increased share in many areas around Brisbane (note the different scale). Notable areas include around Ferny Grove, North Lakes, along the Beenleigh rail line, along the rail line to Darra, and in Springfield. However these are all very small mode shares.

Multiple public transport modes

Multiple public transport mode journey origins tend to be fairly scattered, so here is a summary over the Greater Brisbane area (using place of enumeration data and thus losing journeys with ferry + non PT modes):

Integrated fares were introduced in 2004/05 eliminating the fare penalty for changing modes. There was a slight drop in multi-modal public transport mode share in 2006 (compared to 2001), but then a substantial rise by 2011 (faster than growth in single mode journeys). I want to explore multi-modality in journey to work data some more soon. Stay tuned.

Mode shift to public transport overall

Here’s a map showing the overall mode share to public transport in Statistical Local Areas (SLAs), the smallest geography where data is available for both 2006 and 2011 (you’ll need to click to enlarge, and unfortunately my GIS software doesn’t give every SLA a label ).

The biggest mode shifts to public transport on this map are in Pallara – Heathwood – Larapinta (mostly sparsely populated), around Darra-Richlands (where the new train line opened), Calamvale (new BUZ routes presumably), and around the end of the South East Busway.

Pinjarra Hills has a shift but only 139 people travelled to work from this SLA in 2011, so it only takes a few people to register a larger mode shift. And before you get excited about the airport area (Pinenba-Eagle Farm), only 144 people travelled from there to work in 2011. I’ll look at mode share by work location in a later post.

The biggest shift away from public transport was in Yeerongpilly, whilst other SLAs with significant drops include Fairfield, Geebung, Holland Park, and Highgate Hill. Not sure what the reasons might be in those places.

Walking only

There was a slight shift to walking in the inner city areas, notably around Woolloongabba, Paddington, and Wilston. Walking mode share was highest around the CBD, Fortitude Valley, and around St Lucia/University of Queensland (UQ).

Cycling

Cycling has grown rapidly (off a small base), particularly in the inner suburbs include around St Lucia/UQ and West End.

I’m sure other people will find more patterns – please comment on any interesting finds.

In my post on city level mode share changes we saw that Perth had a 2.1% mode shift to public transport between 2006 and 2011. This post will uncover which areas shifted the most.

The following animations show various mode shares for journeys to work from census collection districts for 2006 and Statistical Area Level 1 (SA1) for 2011. These are the smallest geographies available for each census. All the data is by place of usual residence.

I’ve animated each image to alternate between 2006 and 2011, so you can gaze at them and spot the changes. You’ll need to click on them to enlarge and see the animation.

(I’ve used a slightly faster flip speed compared to my equivalent Melbourne post. Is this better? Please let me know).

Public transport

You can see dramatic increases in public transport mode share in the southern suburbs, most strikingly around Kwinana, Rockingham, and Atwell/Success/Hammond Park/Aubin Grove (south of Cockburn Central). You would have to say the new Mandurah rail line is fairly transformational public transport infrastructure.

You can also see people moved in near Clarkson train station (south-east corner of the urban block labelled “Clarkson” in the far north) and 29% of commuters nearest the station caught public transport to work (most on the fast train service to the Perth CBD). If Clarkson is supposed to be a transit orientated development with high public transport use, it seems to have been successful. The public transport mode share is extraordinarily high for such an outer suburban area. Note that Clarkson station opened in 2004.

Areas of Perth with little discernible shift to public transport include Ellenbrook, the Forrestfield/Kalamunda area to the east, and Ballajura (north-east of Mirrabooka). These outer suburbs do have bus routes linking them to the centre of Perth, but they don’t exactly get a high-speed run into the city.

Sustainable transport (only)

This map excludes those who used private transport to reach public transport. In the outer suburbs of Perth, it seems the vast majority of people are using private motorised transport as part of their journey to work, including to get to train stations.

[minor corrections to map made 5 Nov 2012]

Train

As you would expect, there is a huge change in the southern suburbs around the new Mandurah rail line.

It is also interesting to see that train mode share was much higher north of Warwick than it is south of Warwick. In fact for the inner suburbs significant train mode shares only showed up in the immediate area around stations. Those further from the train line were a little less likely to use public transport, and were more likely to use buses, as the next map shows.

Bus

There’s not a lot of change across Perth. In particular, there isn’t much change in the middle southern suburbs (between Fremantle and Cannington). That might suggest the net increase in public transport mode share in this area came from people getting to train stations by modes other than feeder bus.

Ferry

I’ve added ferries for completeness. I’m not sure what conclusions you can draw, especially with the change in geographies between 2006 and 2011. Certainly ferries did get used by a group of commuters in the South Perth area to get across to the Perth CBD (note there is no train station in South Perth).

Train and bus

You can see the middle southern suburbs used feeder bus services in significant numbers, though not as strongly around Kwinana and Rockingham (perhaps parking at the station is easier?). Train + bus commuting also grew somewhat in the northern suburbs between Warwick and Joondalup, and west of Stirling.

Mode shift to public transport overall

Here’s a map showing the mode shift towards public transport by Statistical Local Area (SLA), the smallest geography for which results are available for both the 2006 and 2011 censuses.

The biggest mode shift was in Kwinana, followed by Perth – remainder (areas of the City of Perth excluding the CBD core), Cockburn, Canning and Melville – all around the new Mandurah rail line. Just off the map is the City of Mandurah area, which had a 5.7% mode shift to public transport (from 3.2% to 8.9%). Nowhere in Perth did public transport mode share go down, although in Kalamunda it was stagnant at 6.7%.

And before you get excited about Rottnest Island showing a mode shift to public transport, it is simply part of the Cockburn SLA. For the record, only 73 people on Rottnest travelled to work in 2011, 21% by bicycle and 64% by walking only (none by ferry or other public transport).

Walking only

The biggest change was in the CBD, where there is now a significant density of workers living (and thus making it onto the map). Walking to work was largely confined to the Perth CBD, around the University of Western Australia (UWA, east of Claremont), Fremantle, Joondalup, and Claremont

Cycling

Cycling has grown rapidly (off a small base), particularly in the inner northern and western suburbs, south of Fremantle, and around UWA.

I’m sure other people will find more patterns – please comment on any interesting finds.

The following animations show various mode shares for journeys to work from census collection districts for 2006 and Statistical Area Level 1 (SA1) for 2011. These are the smallest geographies available for each census. All the data is by place of usual residence.

I’ve animated each image to alternate between 2006 and 2011, so you can gaze at them and spot the changes. But you’ll need to click on them to enlarge and see the animation.

Public transport

Public transport mode share is mostly up across the board. Some exceptions include:

• Langwarrin (east of Frankston)
• Dingley
• Greenvale
• Hillside
• Eastern parts of Rowville

Sustainable transport (only)

This map excludes those who used private transport to reach public transport. It shows that on the suburban fringe, the vast majority of people are still using private motorised transport to get to work. Areas without significant growth include Sunbury, South Morang, Greenvale, Rowville, Berwick north, Skye/Carrum Downs, Mt Eliza, Dingley, areas around the Ringwood-Lilydale rail line, and Westmeadows.

[minor corrections to map made 5 Nov 2012]

Train

There is growth across mode areas of Melbourne. You can see a massive difference in Roxburgh Park Craigieburn area following the extension of suburban electric services to Craigieburn.

Bus

You can see a substantial increases:

• in Doncaster area following the introduction of 7 SmartBus routes (including 4 to the CBD).
• in pockets between the Ringwood and Dandenong rail lines in the middle eastern suburbs. These areas had SmartBus routes introduced in 2002/2005, and perhaps it is taking a while to translate to bus in journey to work.
• Around Abbotsford/Collingwood, perhaps reflecting increased train crowding and introduction of four SmartBus routes along Hoddle Street creating an extremely frequent service to the city.

Tram

You can see increased mode share across the network, particularly around the outer end of the tram route to Bundoora (zone 2 only in 2006, included in zone 1 in 2011) (but less so in Vermont South).

Active transport (only)

You can see gains in the Brunswick, Northcote, Kew and Foostcray areas.

Walking only

I can see little change between 2006 and 2011, which is in line with little change in the overall share for Melbourne.

Cycling

Cycling continues to grow rapidly in the inner northern suburbs, but also a little to the inner east and inner south.

Train and Bicycle

With the introduction of Parkiteer cages at train stations, was there any increase in the number of people riding to train stations?

The numbers are so small, it is difficult to see spatially, but there was a substantial increase in overall numbers from around 1200 to 1800.

Train and bus

You can see increases around the Dandenong rail line, between the Glen Waverley and Ringwood rail lines, around Werribee/Tarneit, and around Sydenham.

Public transport mode shift by SLA

Here’s a map showing the mode shift towards public transport by Statistical Local Area (SLA), the smallest geography for which results are available for both the 2006 and 2011 censuses.

The biggest mode shifts were in the City of Melbourne, followed by Wyndham – south (Point Cook), South Yarra/Prahran, and Moreland – north. Nowhere in Melbourne did public transport mode share reduce.

I’m sure other people will find more patterns in the maps than I have been able to today. Please comment on any interesting finds. I might come back later and update this post when I have more time.

I will aim to do a similar exercise for other cities soon.

The ABS has just released census data for the 2011 journey to work (amongst other things). This post takes a city-level view of mode share trends.

Public transport

The following chart shows the public transport share for journeys to work for people within Statistical Divisions (up to 2006) and Greater Capital City Statistical Areas (for 2011) for each of the Australian major capital cities.

You can see 2011 increases in public transport more share in all cities except Adelaide, Hobart and Canberra. Melbourne grew by 2.2%, Perth by 2.1%, Sydney by 2.0%, Brisbane by 1.1% while Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart dropped by 0.1%.

But there are limitations of this data:

• Census data is usually available by place of enumeration (where you actually were on census night) and/or place of usual residence. In the above chart the following years are by place of enumeration: 1991,  2001, 2006, 2011. I am just not sure whether the other years are place of enumeration or place of usual residence (ABS were unfortunately not as rigorous with their labelling of data tables in the past). There may be small differences in the results for place of usual residence.
• The data available to me has been summarised in a “lossy” fashion when it comes to public transport mode share. It means that a journey involving tram or ferry and one or more non-PT modes is not counted as public transport in any of the results (it falls under “other two modes” or “other three modes” which includes PT and non PT journeys). For example, car + ferry or bicycle + tram. That means the true share of trips involving public transport will be slightly higher than the charts above, particularly for Melbourne and Sydney.
• The 2011 figures relate to Greater Capital City Statistical Areas. For Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Hobart these are larger than the statistical divisions used for 2006 and early data. This means people on the fringe are now included, and they are likely to have lower rates of public transport use. So the underlying trends are likely to be higher growth in public transport mode share.

The limitations in counting of tram and ferry trips can be overcome by measuring mode share by workplace location, although I can only get such data for 2001, 2006 and 2011:

These figures are all higher because they include people travelling to work in the metropolitan areas from outside (where PT might have a higher mode share via rail networks for example) and they count all journeys involving ferry and tram. Between 2006 and 2011, Melbourne grew the fastest – by 2.4%, Sydney and Perth were up 2.0%, Brisbane up 1.2% and very little change in Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart.

Cycling

The following chart shows cycling only journey to work mode share:

(Adelaide and Perth are both on 1.3% in 2011)

Canberra is the stand-out city, owing to a good network of off-road bicycle paths through the city. But Melbourne has shown the fastest increase, going from 1.o% in 2001 to 1.6% in 2011.

Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne had a significant drop between 1991 and 1996, but this did not occur in Hobart, Canberra or Sydney.

Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney have shown the most growth in recent times. Adelaide and Hobart unfortunately went backwards in 2011. I’m not sure why Adelaide dropped so much, maybe it was a product of weather on the two census days?

Here’s another view that includes journeys with bicycle and other modes (by work location, not home location):

Perth and Canberra had the largest growth in journeys involving cycling and other modes.

Walking only

Walking only rose in all cities 2001 to 2006, but then fell in most cities between 2006 and 2011 (Perth and Brisbane the exceptions). Perhaps surprisingly, Hobart had a higher rates of walking to work than all other cities.

Car

The following chart shows the proportion of journeys to work made by car only (either as driver or passenger):

(both Adelaide and Hobart were on 82.7% in 2011)

You can see car mode share peaked in 1996 in all cities except Canberra where it peaked in 2001, and Hobart where the 2011 result was just under the 1996 result.

Hobart, Adelaide and Canberra had small rises in 2011 (1.0%, 0.4% and 0.1% respectively) while Perth had the biggest drop in car mode share (down 2.6%), followed by Melbourne (down 2.0%), Sydney (down 1.8%) and Brisbane (down 0.9%).

Vehicle passenger

Travel as a vehicle passenger has declined in all cities, suggesting we are doing a lot less car pooling and commuter vehicle occupancy is continuing to decline in line with increasing car ownership. Curiously Hobart and Canberra topped the cities for vehicle passenger mode share.

Overall mode split

Because of the issue of under-counting of tram and ferry data for place of enumeration, I’ve constructed the following chart using place of work and a “main mode” summary:

I assigned a ‘main mode’ based on a hierarchy as follows:

• Any journey involving train is counted with the main mode as train
• Any other journey involving bus is counted with the main mode as bus
• Any other journey involving tram and/or ferry is counted as “PT Other”
• Any other journey involving car as driver, truck or motorbike/scooter is counted as “vehicle driver”
• Any other journey involving car as passenger or taxi is counted as “vehicle passenger

In future posts I plan to look at the change in spatial distribution of journey to work mode share (by home and work location).

I’d like to acknowledge Dr John Stone for assistance with historical journey to work data.

There are five parts to this post:

1. Mode share by home location
2. Mode share by work location
3. Mode share for Sydney CBD workers
4. An employment density map of Sydney
5. The relationship between employment density and mode share

(get ready for 25 charts!)

In future posts I hope to look at Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane in more detail, and also compare 2006 and 2011 results.

Firstly a few definitions for mode shares:

• Public transport: Any journey involving any public transport mode (private transport might also have been involved – eg park and ride).
• Active transport: A journey that only involved only walking and/or cycling.
• Sustainable transport: Public transport + Active transport (note: this includes private+public journeys, but not private+cycling journeys).

Also, I have included railway lines on the following maps, however the data I have is unfortunately quite old and doesn’t show the CBD area rail network or the airport line (the Epping-Chatswood line was not operational in 2006).

Method of journey to work by home location

Data is readily available on journey to work by home census collection district, however this is by place of usual residence. Ideally mode shares should be measured using place of enumeration (where people actually were on census night), but I haven’t forked out the $750 required to get access to ABS TableBuilder Pro which would provide that data. So the data I’m presenting is not ideal as some people would have been away from home on census morning and their modes of travel will be associated with their usual residence.

But the data still provides a fairly good feel for what happened as most people were probably at their usual residence, and hopefully most people filled out their forms accurately.

Public transport mode share

Sydney is a sea of green on this map (other cities will have the same colour scale, stay tuned!). Public transport use in journey to work was highest in the inner city area and along the train lines. It was lowest in the outer suburbs beyond the rail lines.

Train

There are three large and stark areas of red near the CBD and close to train lines. Most of these areas are served by direct and frequent bus services to the CBD, and while for some it might be quicker to change onto a train, this would probably be more expensive. Also, the area around Castle Hill has very low train mode share, although we will see shortly that of the small number who do commute to the CBD about three-quarters use public transport.

I note that the airport rail line (not drawn on the map) resulted in a high train mode share at Mascot but not at Green Square.

Bus

Bus mode share was high in the suburbs close to the Sydney CBD, but very low in the outer suburbs (with exceptions around Palm Beach in the north, Castle Hill (served by freeway buses), and seemingly random pockets north of Mount Druitt).

Train and bus

The following map shows people who used both train and bus in their journey to work:

I’ve used the same colour scale as other maps, and so most of the city is red indicating very few bus-train transfers. The curious exception is around Bondi Beach/Bronte. This is probably all to do with the special Link Tickets that allow bus and train travel on the one ticket in this area only. They are designed for people visiting these areas, but they seem to be very popular with locals travelling to work.

I do wonder what would happen if there were valuable integrated tickets for more places (perhaps we’ll see some differences for 2011 thanks to MyZone).

Ferry

I’ve zoomed into the harbour for this map, and included the ferry wharves (some receiving a much more frequent peak period service than others).

You can see high mode shares on the north shore, to the inner east, and around Manly (wharves which probably have fairly direct services to the CBD). This includes some areas a fair walk from the ferry terminals – with some people probably using connecting buses. In fact, here is a map showing bus and ferry commuters mostly on the north shore (note different colour scale):

Public and Private transport combined

The following map shows the percentage of people who used public transport as well as car, motorcycle and/or truck to get to work (again using a different colour scale):

Use of both public and private modes is most common in the northern suburbs around Hornsby (areas away from the train line), around Macquarie Park (now served by rail), north of Blacktown (now serviced by bus rapid transit), and west of Sutherland.

Cycling

The following map also uses the different scale, and I have zoomed into the areas with significant bicycle mode share.

The cycling mode share peaks at 11% from a pocket of Enmore, and seems to be the domain of the inner southern suburbs.

Active transport (only)

The following map shows people who only used walking and/or cycling to get to work:

You can see the walking/cycling hot spots are around the CBD, North Sydney, Parramatta, Chatswood, Liverpool, Penrith, and around Randwick/UNSW.

Method of journey to work by work location

Here is a map showing the public transport mode share of journeys to travel zones in Sydney in 2006 (where 200 or more journeys were made):

It’s not just the Sydney CBD that had reasonably high public transport mode share. Public transport mode share peaked in the centre of the following regional hubs:

• North Sydney 53%
• Bondi Junction: 41%
• Parramatta: 38%
• Chatswood: 35%
• St Leonards: 34%

(these are the highest value recorded by any travel zone in each centre).

By contrast, analysis of destination mode share for Melbourne showed all major suburban centres to have well less than 15% public transport mode share (most less than 10%).

Public transport mode share was also quite clearly higher along the train lines – particularly in the middle and outer suburbs.

Here are enlargements of inner Sydney and the Sydney CBD area:

Here’s a map showing active transport mode share for greater Sydney workplace destinations:

Active transport was most commonly used to inner city areas including Newtown, Camperdown, Bondi Beach, Randwick, Paddington and Potts Point.  However it was low in the Sydney CBD. The Holsworthy Military Camp as a large green area in the south with high active transport mode share – probably because the military staff live on site. People more familiar with Sydney might be able to comment further.

Here is sustainable transport mode share (public transport and active transport combined, everything else being private motorised transport). You can see that private transport was by far the dominant for western Sydney jobs.

Journeys to work in the Sydney CBD

Here’s a map showing the public transport mode share by home location of journeys to work in the Sydney CBD (defined as the Sydney – inner SLA, the only red SLA on the map):

Public transport had a mode share around 70-80% for large areas of Sydney (in contrast to Melbourne where 60-70% was more common). However there was a much lower share from the CBD itself and areas adjacent.

Were they walking or cycling instead?

Well, yes for the City of Sydney areas, but not for Woollahra to the east. On the following sustainable transport mode share map, you can see that around 35% of workers from Woollahra commuted to the CBD by private transport (note I have used a different scale for this map):

Sustainable mode share is highest from the western and south-western suburbs, whereas many people chose to drive from the northern suburbs, the southern coastal areas, and even the inner eastern suburbs.

But what proportion of the working population commuted to the CBD?

Compared to the Melbourne CBD, the Sydney CBD seems to have a stronger role, even though Sydney has major employment centres outside the central CBD.

For anyone interested, here are similar maps for North Sydney and Parramatta as work destinations:

Sydney’s employment density

The BTS data also allows the construction of an employment density map. I’ve drawn this map based on people who travelled to each destination zone on census day.

And a zoom in on the inner city:

Employment density and mode share

Finally. here is a look at the relationship between employment density and public, active and private transport mode share (by workplace zone).

I must stress that these results will strongly reflect the design of public transport – which is heavily geared towards places with high employment density (such as the Sydney CBD) as that is where public transport can generally complete strongest with private transport (the cost of parking and traffic congestion etc). By increasing employment density in any parcel of land you won’t automatically get high public transport mode share – you have to provide high quality public transport to that destination first!

No surprises there!

Was that what you expected? Active transport actually had the highest mode share in areas with the lower employment densities. These are likely to be mixed residential/employment areas where employees can live close by, military camps, and farms.

Finally, it will be little surprise that the lower employment densities had the highest private transport mode shares. These areas are likely to have ample room for free employee parking, and public transport is likely to struggle to efficiently deliver a small number of employees over a large area.

For this exercise, I’ve looked at 2011 census data at the Statistical Area Level 1 (SA1) geography (currently the smallest geography for which population data is available) for Greater Capital City Statistical Areas (which include large tracts of rural hinterland). I’ve sometimes applied an arbitrary threshold of 3 persons per hectare to define urban residential areas.

Measures of overall density

Population weighted density is a weighted average of the density of all the parcels of land in the city, with the population of each parcel of land providing the weighting. This provides a figure indicative of the residential density of the “average person”, although that’s still a little abstract. A city where a large proportion of people live in dense areas will have a much higher weighted population density than average population density.

Average density is simply the total population divided by the area of the city (or if you like, the average density weighted by the areas of each parcel of land). In calculating average residential density (which I’m doing in this post), the area would only include residential areas (I’ve arbitrarily used a threshold of SA1s with at least 3 persons per hectare).

Another measure is urban density, which considers all the land that makes up the urban city, including non-residential areas, but excluding the rural land that makes up large parts of most metropolitan areas when defined by administrative boundaries. I have not attempted to measure ‘urban’ density in this post.

Firstly here’s a table of data for the six largest Australian cities with three different measures of residential density:

You’ll notice that Melbourne has a lower population than Sydney, but the total land area above 3 persons/ha is much larger.

Here are those densities in chart form:

You can see Sydney has around double the population weighted density of most other cities, but its average density is only about 60% higher. These figures show Sydney has a very different density pattern compared other Australian cities.

You can also see very little difference in weighted density whether you exclude low density land parcels or not (the blue and red bars). The density is brought down only slightly by the relatively small number of people living in very low density areas (below 3 persons/ha) within the statistical geography. Thus weighted average density is a good way to get around arguments about the boundary of the “urban” area. But then we are only measuring residential density here – and the large unoccupied spaces between residents of a city are very important when it comes to transport issues.

Can you compare population weighted density of Australian cities with international cities? Yes, but only if the parcels of land used are of a similar size and created in a similar fashion. The more fine-grained the geography (ie smaller the parcels of land), the more non-residential pockets of land will be excluded from the calculation. Anyone doing an international comparison should compare how the ABS create their geography at SA1 level with approaches of other statistical agencies. And please comment below if you get a set of comparable figures.

Density by distance from the CBD

The differences in density can be seen a little more clearly when you look at weighted average density by distance from the city centre:

(note: I’ve chopped the vertical scale at 100 persons/ha so parts of central Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are off the scale).

For Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and Canberra (ACT) you can see a weighted average density in the mid to low 20s for large areas of the city, indicating large tracts of what you might describe as traditional Australian suburbia. In Canberra this kicks in at just 2 km from the CBD, and in Adelaide it kicks in 3 km from the city.

In Melbourne the weighted average density doesn’t get below 30 until 9 kms from the CBD indicating a larger denser inner area, and in Sydney it doesn’t drop below 30 until you are 39 km from the CBD!

Distribution of population at different densities

Here’s a frequency distribution of densities in the cities:

I’m using an interval of 1 person/ha, and the figures are rounded down to form the values on the X axis (ie: the value you see at 20 persons/ha is the proportion of the population living between 20 and 21 persons/ha).

You can see Sydney has the flattest distribution of all – indicating it has the widest range of densities of any city. Melbourne is not far behind, whereas Canberra has a lot of people living in areas between 12 and 24 persons/ha.

Note that many cities have a significant proportion of the population living at rural densities (0 to 1 person per hectare), particularly Greater Brisbane.

Another way to look at this data is a cumulative frequency distribution:

You can read off the median densities for the cities: Sydney 33, Melbourne 28, Brisbane 22, Perth 22, Adelaide 22, Canberra 19.

You can also see that 30% of people in Sydney live in densities of 44 persons/ha or more – compared to only 12% of Melburnians, 5% of Brisbanites, and less than 2% of people in the other cities.

If 15-30 persons per hectare is what you define as suburbia, then that’s 26% of Sydney, 37% of Melbourne, 44% of Brisbane, 55% of Perth, 57% of Canberra and 62% of Adelaide.

Spatial distribution of density

For the purest view of density you cannot get past a map. The following maps show a simple density calculation at the SA1 geography.

Update 22 Oct 2012: maps now include railway lines using OpenStreetMap data provided by Maps Without Borders. The data is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0, copyright OpenStreetMap and contributors.

Sydney

You can see vast areas of darker green (40+/ha), particularly between Sydney Harbour and Botany Bay. There are also quite a few green areas in the western suburbs, while the northern north shore has the lowest density. There are many concentrations of density around the passenger rail lines.

Melbourne (and Geelong)

You can see areas of dark green around the inner city, with large tracts of yellow and green in the suburbs (25-35 persons/ha). There are however areas of moderate green (30-40) in some of the newer outer growth areas to the west and north, reflecting recent planning. There’s a not a strong relationship to train lines, but this might reflect higher densities equally attracted to tram lines (not shown on the map).

Note this map is slightly different to that in a recent post where I masked out non-residential mesh blocks.

Brisbane

You can see dark green patches around the river/CBD, but then mostly medium to low densities in the suburbs. There’s very little evidence of higher densities in fringe growth areas. There are some denser areas around railway lines (note the map does not show Brisbane’s busway network).

Perth

You can see green patches around the city, but also in some fringe growth areas where new planning controls are presumably forcing up densities. There are however vast tracts of orange (15-25 persons/ha), and little evidence of higher density around the rail lines (note: a lot of the lines are freight only and the north-south passenger line has very broad station spacing and limited walking catchment as most of it is within a freeway median).

Adelaide

Adelaide some inner city blocks of high density, but once you get outside the green belt surrounding the city blocks, you fairly quickly head into suburban densities. There are only a few pockets of high density in the middle and outer suburbs, and very little relationship evident between density and the rail lines.

Canberra (and Queanbeyan)

Canberra has vast areas at low density, and only a few pockets with dark green. There are however green patches on the fringes (particularly in the far north and far south), perhaps again reflecting planning policies forcing up densities.

Sydney is really quite a different city compared to the rest of Australia, with a much larger share of the population living in high density residential areas (more than I had expected). Melbourne has a much lower population weighted density (still quite a few people living in high density areas, but much less so than Sydney), followed by four cities that aren’t that different when it comes to density: Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra.

What about density and public transport use?

Here’s a comparison of density (measured as both average and population weighted) and the most recent estimate of public transport mode share of motorised passenger kms for Australian cities:

Population weighted density certainly shows a stronger relationship with public transport use than average density (r-squared of 0.89 versus 0.82 on a linear regression).

If you believe that higher population density will lead to higher public transport use (for a given level of public transport service), then you would expect Sydney to be well placed to have a higher public transport mode share. Which indeed it does, but does it have the same level of public transport supply as other cities, and are all other factors equal? That’s a very difficult question to answer.

You could measure public transport service kilometres per capita, but different modes have different speeds, stopping frequencies and capacities, public transport supply will vary greatly across the city, and some cities might have more effective service network designs that others.

If all cities had the same levels of public transport supply and all other things were equal, you might expect a straight line relationship (or perhaps an exponential relationship). But Brisbane and Melbourne (and to a small extent Perth) seem to be bucking what otherwise might be a linear pattern. Are these cities doing much better with quality and quantity of public transport supply? Or is it something else about those cities?

Car ownership rates do vary between Australian cities, but this might be more a product of public transport viability for particular residents:

Also, we know that car ownership doesn’t have a strong relationship with car use.

When working population census data comes out I would like to look at the distribution of employment within cities. We know that public transport use is highest for journeys to work in the CBD (as it usually competes strongly against the car), so the proportion of a city’s jobs that are in the CBD is likely to impact the public transport mode share (at least for journeys to work). Moreover, a higher average employment density in general might be easier to serve with competitive public transport, and thus lead to a higher public transport mode share. It will hopefully also be possible to calculate weighted density of employment (at least at the SA2 level).

Finally, I’d like thank Alan Davies (The Urbanist) for inspiring this post.

Other posts about density:

• A first look at 2011 Melbourne residential density, and how it has changed
• Visualising the changing density of Australian cities
• What does Melbourne’s urban density look like? (2006)
• Urban density and public transport mode share