Tracking travel in and around Hampshire

Hampshire Perspectives is the County Council's residents' forum

This report summarises key findings from the 45th Hampshire Perspectives survey, which was the fifth in series of annual surveys focused on travel in Hampshire. We continue to use your feedback to understand how you travel around the county (mindful that you as forum members do not necessarily fully represent every demographic or geography in Hampshire), and how your travel needs may be changing over time. This provides a valuable local snapshot against the wider national picture, informing us as we develop and deliver strategies to support local people with their everyday journeys, make cycling and walking safer, and plan our public transport better.

The survey was open between 4 and 18 July 2025, and was completed by 666 Hampshire Perspectives members.

Key findings were as follows:

Some aspects of your travel behaviour have remained stable:

• Car / van travel remains the most common means of transport around Hampshire (mainly smaller cars), with shopping, leisure and social accounting for most journeys.
• The number of trips, and average journey frequency have remained relatively constant post COVID (i.e. 2023-2025).
• As in previous years, the shorter the journey, the more likely it is to be made by active travel, be seen as easy, and take place in towns / cities. Longer journeys are more likely to be by car, for leisure, using more major roads.
• Reasons for not using public transport continue to centre on lack of service and aspects of convenience.

Some aspects of travel behaviour are showing longer term changing patterns:

• Continued growth in electric / cleaner / hybrid vehicles, with 23% of respondents now using them as their main vehicle.
• A slight increase in leisure or social travel over the past five years. Commuting has continued to decline.
• A decrease in those travelling in town / city centres and suburbs, and a slight increase in those travelling in mainly village / rural areas.
• Slight declines in active travel continue, even taking COVID into account. Barriers are convenience, time constraints, baggage transportation, and health / mobility constraints.
• The proportion of respondents affected by fuel and living costs has gradually declined since 2023 (or it may be that people have become more used to the increased costs).
• More people are using public transport, (although the overall proportion of journeys made this way has remained stable since COVID).

And some are showing patterns that are changing, but only more recently:

• Journeys were felt to be slightly easier overall in 2025 compared to the last couple of years: in particular, those using public transport.
• While accounting for a smaller proportion of overall journeys, those for medical purposes outstrip health / fitness-based trips for the first time in 2025.
• More recently, short journeys show signs of getting longer - slightly fewer of the journeys reported in 2025 were less than a mile, with a corresponding increase in those of around 3-4 miles.
• The majority of journeys still start in the morning, but a slight decrease has been visible in 2025 in early morning starts, and a slight increase seen in journeys starting on weekday afternoons.