Exploratory mapping of commuter flows in England and Wales

The availability of representative and disaggregate interaction data allows for a new range of “realistic” analysis with geographical information systems and spatial statistics. The paper uses the origin-destination commute data published from Census 2001 to analyse interaction patterns generally within England and Wales and in more details around a number of cities. In the city “cases” specific attention is given to the “range of influence” of each metropolitan area, measured through the variation in commute distances and the directionality of commuting. The cities are London, Manchester and Birmingham. These are chosen for their size and differences in regional context. In the general analysis – at the country-wide scale - special emphasis is put on deriving a representation of the scale and the corridors of interaction from the relatively disaggregate data. A map of commuter flows in England and Wales drawn from the ward-based OD-data is presented. Similar methods have been used by the authors to assess the development trends in commuting in and around the largest urban areas in Denmark. The Danish data will be included in the paper for a comparison of commute distances and its dependence on location in the urban area – between Denmark and England.