An Efficient Algorithm to Generate Official Statistical Reporting Areas: The Case of the 1984 Travel-to-Work Areas Revision in Britain

Travel-to-work areas (T.T.W.A.s) are used by the Department of Employment for the reporting of monthly local unemployment statistics. T.T.W.A.s are also used to demarcate those parts of Britain to benefit from the public expenditure on industry under regional policy. The 1984 revision of T.T.W.A. boundaries provided academics with a rare opportunity to help rationalize official statistical areas. This involved the specification of zone-design criteria and the implementation of these in a regionalization methodology. It was found that methods based on the model of local labour market areas yielded the most reasonable set of boundaries. The final methodology is detailed here, together with the actual parameter values used in the analysis that produced the new T.T.W.A.s. The paper ends by considering the implementation of the results, and evaluates the new areas against the old T.T.W.A.s.