Travel survey

Travel remains below pre-pandemic levels

In Sweden, 3.7 billion journeys were made in 2023, which is roughly the same number as in 2022, but at the same time a decrease of 12 percent compared to 2019 before the corona pandemic. A greater proportion of the journeys were made by public transport in 2023 compared to 2022, while journeys by foot, bicycle and car had small decreases, all within the margin of error.

A large part of our travel is related to work and school. It is mainly for these journeys that we see decreases compared to before the pandemic. Despite not having any pandemic-related restrictions in 2023, these journeys decreased and have declined by 18 percent since 2019.

The Statistics in Brief

Since 2019, a travel survey has been conducted and presented in annual reports. The survey covers Sweden's population aged 6–84 years and is carried out as a combined paper and web questionnaire. The sample is stratified by residential county, age group, and gender. The sample for 2023 includes approximately 12,200 people in Sweden.

Data on travel behaviour provide important background information for formulating national and regional transport policy, the infrastructure development and the range of transport services offered, traffic safety efforts, and research and development concerning people's travel and communication patterns.

Transport Analysis first began collecting data from national travel behaviour surveys under the auspices of the Swedish Institute for Transport and Communications Analysis (SIKA) as Riks-RVU during the period 1994–1998, then in RES 1991–2001 and RES 2005–2006.

The annual reports were published for Riks-RVU and RES during the period 1994–2001, and they have issued been in electronic form as of RES 1999. RES 2005–2006 is published both electronically and in hardcopy form. Collections of tables from RVU Sweden are published annually in electronic form. Statistics from RVU Sweden will also be published in other analyses that Transport Analysis conducts.