Car User Percentage vs Absolute Numbers
Let’s reference the percentage of car users to the UK population in the corresponding year:
For example, the East of England had the greatest drop in car users, 6% (from 79% to 73%), which is probably a reason for their local authorities to be proud of.
Say the whole country would have recorded the same “performance ” i.e. a 6% decrease in car users. If we calculate the absolute numbers referenced to the population that year it turns out that the car user number would have actually increased by 2,680,500 people, despite the percentage decrease.
If we followed the same reasoning for Merseyside where car users increased by 5%, the absolute figures extrapolated to the entire UK would look much worse: (9,380,000 more car users).
London is a particular case where both percentages and absolute figures have dropped for two reasons:
- The Tube absorbs a significant part of the commuters, but unfortunately, although we’d like to, this solution isn’t scalable nationwide.
- Driving and parking in London is a proper nightmare, and no one wants this situation scaled nationwide.