2025 Commuter Census: Executive Summary

Executive summary

This year, the results are stark: while the number of people carpooling and driving alone in EVs has risen, the amount of respondents using all other sustainable transport modes has fallen and driving alone has increased for the first time since 2022.  

At 40%, driving alone in a petrol or diesel car remains the single-most popular form of commuting, and its popularity has unfortunately risen since last year. In the meantime, however, carpooling continues to rise beyond last year – and beyond pre-pandemic levels – for the first time, with 16% of participants saying they now carpool to work.  

Other sustainable methods of transport have sadly decreased slightly in popularity, as the numbers of bus and train users and walkers have fallen.  

Meanwhile, Commuter Census respondents have continued to move

away from a preference for home working, as 49% of workers would now prefer to work from site for more than half the week. The dial has otherwise not shifted on hybrid working, as employees are still working from home for an average of 1.6 days a week, exactly the same as last year – contrary to accounts of workers returning to the office en masse.  

While we were reporting the success of the £2 bus cap in Commuter Census 2024, the new £3 bus cap has affected this, with bus use decreasing by almost a fifth since then.  

More positively, however, EV usage is now rising after it plateaued in 2024. This year has seen an increase in both EV and hybrid vehicle commuting across drive alone and carpooling. Contributing factors are the price compared to diesel and petrol engines slowly coming down and EV charging stations continuing to be rolled out.  

Driving alone back on the rise

Despite dropping below 40% for the first time in 2024, the number of respondents commuting alone in a petrol or diesel car has risen in 2025. Commuter Census had tracked a steady decline since 2022, from 46% to 38% in 2024. However, for the first time in three years there was an increase in this mode to 40% in 2025. 

The total number of workers who drive alone in either a petrol, diesel, hybrid or electric car has also increased since last year, rising to 48% of respondents from 45% in 2024. This has unfortunately ended another continued decline since 2019 (except 2020 and 2021 due to COVID, although total drivers were also down in these years too). It is still below 2019’s pre-pandemic figure of 52%, however. 

This is consistent with traffic as a whole in the last year, where road miles rose by 0.9% in the year up to March 2025 – equivalent to 2.2 billion miles, according to GOV.UK Provisional road traffic estimates, Great Britain: April 2024 to March 2025. 

More positively, carpooling continues to grow in popularity across all fuel types – now at 16%. This 10% increase in carpooling since last year sees it back above pre-COVID levels for the first time.  

Meanwhile, the percentage of respondents who could be encouraged to carpool has also continued to rise, with 44% saying they would consider carpooling as an alternative to their current mode of commuting, compared to 42% in 2024. 

Is new policy hindering public transport?

Among other modes of transport, the most significant difference in the last 12 months is in bus and EV bus use, which has fallen by 19%. This represents a near complete reversal of the 17% increase in uptake Commuter Census reported between 2023 and 2024.  

There remains a UK Government cap on bus fares, but the rise to £3 from £2 in January 2025 is likely to be a large contributor to the fall in patronage; The DfT’s figures below corroborate this change. This shows how price-conscious commuters are and how bus pricing is not commercially viable without subsidy. However, when priced correctly it is straightforward to influence increase in uptake.  

7.6% of respondents commute via train, a 9% increase on pre-pandemic numbers as reported in the 2019 Commuter Census. This appears to be in line with the Department for Transport’s figures, who have recently noted that weekday passengers into London have now exceeded pre-pandemic figures. However, the level of people travelling into cities

outside London is still almost 10% below 2019. 

One reason why non-Londoners aren’t travelling by train at pre-COVID levels could be cost – 4 in 10 Commuter Census respondents this year reported this as a factor when choosing their commute method. Train prices have risen again since last year, up by 5.1% – with cheaper advance fares increasing by almost double the rate of inflation, according to the Guardian. Train prices also rose by 4.9% between 2023 and 2024.  

It doesn’t appear as if the UK Government’s plan to renationalise the railways will cause much of an increase in usage. When asked if they would be more encouraged to commute by train once the railways are renationalised, 46% of Commuter Census respondents said “No”, while just 22% said “Yes” (with the remainder saying “Don’t know”). It is unclear what effect renationalisation will have so far but lower ticket prices will not be introduced in the short term. 

Read the full 28-page Commuter Census 2025 now using the button below.