Authors: Dr Melisa Williams Higgins, Dr Satadru Mukherjee, Dr Yue Yin
The Empirical Analysis and Data Mapping Group (EADMG) investigated how transport issues affect residents across Bristol, focusing on which wards are most impacted and whether these areas also face socioeconomic challenges. Our research reveals a strong overlap between transport difficulties and broader inequalities.
Key Concepts
We define Transport Inequality as unequal access to transport infrastructure and services, which varies by socioeconomic status. This includes:
- Transport poverty (lack of affordable options),
- Transport deserts (areas with minimal transport services),
- Transport exclusion/disadvantage (barriers to using available transport).
The EADMG data analysis at the ward level helped us to identify additional areas of concern beyond those already documented in the existing literature and community sources. The Bristol wards of concern are highlighted in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Transport Challenges Affecting Bristol Wards.
Note: Wards affected by all three challenges are circled in red, areas affected by at least 1 issue are circled in blue, and areas identified from the ward-level data analysis are circled in purple.
Socioeconomic Profile of Transport-Challenged Wards
We examined the socioeconomic profile of Bristol wards facing transport challenges, focusing on life satisfaction, financial stability, and education. Key findings include:
- Life Satisfaction: Most transport-challenged wards report lower life satisfaction than the Bristol average (66%), except Bedminster, Hengrove and Whitchurch Park, and Knowle.
- Financial Stability: While 10.4% of Bristol residents overall struggle financially, 9 out of 14 transport-challenged wards report higher difficulty. Hartcliffe and Withywood is the most affected, with 25% of residents struggling.
- Education: Pupil absences are generally higher in transport-challenged wards, with only 6 wards performing better than the city average.
- Most Affected Wards: Five wards—Hartcliffe & Withywood, Lawrence Weston, Stockwood, Hengrove, and Southmead—face all three transport challenges and generally perform worse across all socioeconomic indicators. However:
- Hengrove shows higher life satisfaction than average.
- Stockwood performs better financially and has fewer pupil absences than the Bristol average.
Ward-Wise Variation in Experience With Public Transport
In our analysis we explore how transport issues affect community participation across Bristol wards.
Community Engagement Barriers:
- In the median ward (Hengrove and Whitchurch Park), 12.6% of residents report that transport issues prevent them from engaging with the community.
- Several wards above this median—especially those far from the city centre (e.g., Hartcliffe & Withywood, Brislington East & West, Filwood, Lockleaze, Knowle)—face greater transport-related barriers.
- We also see a link between the wards facing community engagement barriers and the poor socioeconomic outcomes previously discussed.
- Potential for Improvement: Residents in transport-deprived wards (e.g., Brislington East & West, Hengrove & Whitchurch Park, Lockleaze, Bishopsworth, Eastville) believe that better public transport would encourage more participation in events and venues.
- Public Transport Satisfaction: Satisfaction with public transport tends to align with satisfaction about information availability on transport services.
- Non-Car Users’ Experience:
- There is no clear link between non-car ownership and satisfaction with local bus services.
- However, there is a moderate positive correlation between non-car users’ satisfaction with public transport and their community involvement, suggesting that reliable transport is key to enabling participation.
We created a transport performance score to assess transport performance across all 34 city wards using data from the 2023/24 Bristol Quality of Life Survey (QoL).
- All transport-related indicators were extracted and compared against the citywide average.
- Wards received one point per indicator where they outperformed the average.
- A cumulative score was calculated for each ward, with higher scores indicating better transport performance. Results were visualised using Datawrapper, showing spatial variation across wards (Figure 2A).
- We find that wards like Hartcliffe & Withywood, Hengrove & Whitchurch Park, and Stockwood scored poorly, aligning with previous findings on transport poverty, desert, and exclusion.
Ward-Level Performance Analysis
Figure 2: Ward-Level Heterogeneity in Transport and Non-transport Indicators across Bristol |
Socioeconomic Comparison
- To explore the relationship between ward-level transport performance and broader socioeconomic conditions non-transport indicators from the same QoL Survey were also analysed using the same scoring method.
- Despite different distributions, several wards (e.g., Brislington East, Filwood, Hartcliffe & Withywood, Hengrove & Whitchurch Park) performed poorly in both transport and socioeconomic domains (Figure 2B).
The overlap between poor transport and socioeconomic outcomes suggests a potential link, providing preliminary evidence and motivation for further research into how transport inequality may influence broader social and economic conditions.
The longer version of this scoioenomic report can be found here.