Geoff Ogden to Anna Price: Compliance review of Wales National Travel Survey six-month results

Published:

Sent from: Transport for Wales

Sent to: Office for Statistics Regulation

Download correspondence (139 KB)

Dear Anna

Compliance review of Wales National Travel Survey: six-month results

Thank you for carrying out the compliance review of the Wales National Travel Survey: six-month results. We were pleased to hear your view on the outputs and welcome your recommendations as we continue to improve how we publish and communicate our analysis.

Based on these recommendations, we have completed the following actions to enhance the trustworthiness, quality and value of our statistics:

Recommendation 1:

  • We support TfW’s aim to review the findings reports in response to user feedback to make them more concise and accessible.
  • Following feedback from stakeholders and users, we’ve produced mode-specific reports that will be published alongside the three headline reports in our November publication. This means that users who are only interested in one mode of travel (such as rail) can easily find the results in a single report. This approach will enable us to provide more detailed analysis in the modal reports while reducing the amount of content in the overall headline reports.
  • To further enhance accessibility, the team should also review the presentation of the statistics in graphs and consider whether there are simpler, clearer ways to present the findings.
  • We have reviewed how we present information on graphs in the reports. In future, publication charts will be made more consistent with a focus on the important messages from the data.
  • We will continue to work on developing an interactive chart tool (in line with user feedback) to present the statistics in a self-serve manner.
  • TfW should also consider how to improve the navigability of its website and the supporting documentation to make it easier for users to access information they are interested in.
  • We have worked with our web development team to include a link to the Statistics section on our homepage. We will continue to work with the team to further improve the accessibility of publication formats and navigability to the statistics on our website.

Recommendation 2:

  • To support users’ understanding of the accuracy of the statistics, TfW should review how it communicates uncertainty in the findings reports, such as using common terms like ‘about’ and ‘approximately’. o We have reviewed the OSR’s guidance on presenting uncertainty and the Analysis Function’s guidance on communicating quality, uncertainty and change. We have incorporated this guidance in our upcoming annual reports as well as including a “note on the data” section in each document.

Recommendation 3:

  • To be transparent about the approach TfW takes in producing and publishing these statistics, information about the following should be included in the additional documentation the team plans to publish with the annual report: the quality management approach, the roles of TfW and NatCen, and the weighting approach.
  • We will continue to develop the supporting documentation to improve transparency and trustworthiness. As part of our publication in November, we will publish information on our quality management approach to support our Quality Report. We will publish the Technical Report for the 2025/26 survey year, which will include details of the weighting approach and the role of NatCen in the data collection. We will also include a summary of this in our Quality Report.
  • To improve the trustworthiness of TfW as an official statistics producer, the team should also publish a pre-release access list alongside the annual report, and act in line with other relevant pre-release access rules and principles.
  • For the November publication, we will continue to act in line with the pre-release access rules and principles. The pre-release access list for both the April and November publications will be published alongside the annual report, and we will continue to do so for future publications.

Recommendation 4:

  • To ensure that potentially interested parties are aware of the statistics and their value for answering important questions on transport in Wales, the team should consider how it can best promote the forthcoming annual WNTS statistics.
  • We will continue to work with stakeholders to ensure that they are aware of new statistics being published.
  • We will continue to explore opportunities to present and explain our statistics to new and existing stakeholders and potential users.
  • We will continue to work closely with our communications and media teams to improve the publicity, reach and impact of future publications.

Yours sincerely,

Geoff Ogden

Compliance review of Wales National Travel Survey: six-month results (August 2026)

Anna Price to Geoff Ogden: Compliance review of Wales National Travel Survey (August 2026)