Accredited official statistics

Disability, accessibility and Blue Badge statistics: 2021 to 2022

Data on trips made by disabled people from the National Travel Survey, and disabled parking badges (Blue Badges) held and issued in England.

Documents

Disability, accessibility and blue badge statistics: 2021 to 2022 data tables

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Details

Statistics on trips taken by disabled people are obtained from the National Travel Survey (NTS).

In 2021:

  • disabled adults in England made 28% fewer trips than non-disabled adults
  • this difference was smaller amongst the 16 to 59 age range (18%) than amongst the over 60s (37%)
  • disabled adults in England made an average of 594 trips, compared to 821 for non-disabled adults

Statistics on parking badges for disabled people (‘Blue Badges’) in England are obtained from the Blue Badge Digital Service (BBDS) database.

As at 31 March 2022:

  • 2.44 million Blue Badges were held, an increase of 3.6% since March 2021
  • 4.3% of the population held a Blue Badge

Between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022:

  • 1.04 million badges were issued, an increase of 212,000 badges (25.7%) on the previous year
  • this increase is likely to be at least in part due to the effects of the gradual easing of coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions on local authority processes and staffing
  • 42% of these were issued without further assessment

Due to ongoing issues with data quality and completeness, and in order to reduce the burden of this collection on local authorities, data on Blue Badge prosecutions have not been collected for the year ending 31 March 2022.

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Transport: disability, accessibility and blue badge statistics

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Updates to this page

Published 18 January 2023

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