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Annex C: Topic guide

Contribution of Traveline Scotland to Modal Shift

Focus groups

Draft topic guide

1) Introduction - 5 mins

• Introduce self and MORI

• Explain purpose of the research:

MORI has been commissioned by the Scottish Executive to conduct research among users of Traveline Scotland, looking at what difference it has made to people. By providing high quality travel information via services such as Traveline Scotland, the Executive hope to encourage more people to use public transport instead of the car, in turn reducing congestion on the roads. As you know, we recently conducted a telephone survey among users of travel information services i.e. either Traveline Scotland or another travel information service, in which you kindly participated.

The aim of today's discussion is to expand on the findings from the telephone survey.

• Emphasise
• • We are not expecting people to be 'experts' about Traveline Scotland services. We will be talking to a range of people from different backgrounds who participated in the telephone survey in April.
  • MORI's independence and guarantee of confidentiality

• Explain group should last around 1hr 30 minutes. Check everyone is ok with this. Tell participants where the nearest fire exits are etc…and where the nearest facilities are.

• Request permission to tape record (can be turned off at any point)

• Participant introductions (name, where they live, how long they have lived in that particular area)

2) Attitudes towards public transport - 15 mins

FLIPCHART EXERCISE - Attitudes to public transport. Words to describe public transport in your area. Write words and phrases on flipchart

What words or phrases come to mind when you think about public transport in the area where you live? PROBE FOR POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES

• Why do you say that?
• What range of services are available in your area?
  • Does anyone use public transport services?

IF NOT Why not? How could they be improved?

IF SO Which ones and why?

• How often would you say you use these services?
• What types of journey do you use public transport for? PROBE FOR TYPES OF JOURNEY YOU WOULD USE THE TRAIN FOR, COACH/BUS, TUBE etc…PROBE FOR GOING TO WORK, SHOPS/TOWN CENTRE, VISITING FAMILY AND FRIENDS, GOING OUT IN THE EVENING, GOING AWAY FOR A WEEKEND etc…

3) Public Transport Information Services - 10 mins

FLIPCHART EXERCISE - Information services. Write travel information services they have used or have heard about on flipchart

• Where do you currently find out about public transport services in your area? (PROBE FOR TIMETABLES FROM BUS DEPOT, INTERNET (LOCAL OPERATOR WEBSITES, COUNCIL WEBSITE), TELEPHONE SERVICES (PARTICULARLY TRAVELINE), WORD OF MOUTH
• If you are trying to plan a journey which services do you normally use? (Refer to flipchart)
• Why do you use these services over others? (MORE CONVENIENT/EASIER/FAMILIARITY WITH SERVICE)
• What types of journey do you use these services for?

Are you satisfied with the current level of information provision on public transport in Scotland?

• Would an improvement in information services encourage you to use public transport more often?
• What improvement can be explored further in section 6.

4) Traveline Scotland Services - 30 mins

• How often have you used Traveline Scotland information services?
• Which of the services have you used? PROBE FOR TELEPHONE, WEBSITE, MOBILE PHONE USI NG SMS/TEXT MESSAGING
• Which is your preferred service? Why?
• We would now like you to request a real journey from the Traveline Scotland information service. We will be asking you a series of questions about how you found the experience afterwards. This is not a test, we just want to gauge how helpful and easy it is to get the type of information you are looking for.

INTERACTIVE EXERCISE - (This exercise will remind people of the Traveline Scotland services) - The group will be provided with a handout of an actual journey, using still from the internet. They will be given 5 minutes to look through the handout and asked questions about how easy or difficult they find the information to follow.

The second exercise will involve one of the participants calling up the TLS telephone service and enquiring about public transport solutions for that same journey. The call will be on speakerphone so everyone is provided with the same information. They will then be asked to discuss how they found the service on this occasion, before going on to talk about their previous experiences of using Traveline Scotland.

FLIPCHART EXERCISE - Write telephone and internet at the top of the page. Ask each group to provide top of the head words and phrases to describe how they found the service. PROBE FOR HELPFUL/EASY TO UNDERSTAND/FRIENDLY/USEFUL

• Did you get the information you were looking for? IF YES
• Did you find it easy to follow? PROBE FOR LOGICAL/ILLOGICAL
• How did you find the presentation of the information? PROBE FOR LAYOUT OF TEXT/INFORMATION/COLOUR/SIZE

IF NO Why not? PROBE FOR NO TRANSPORT AVAILABLE FOR THE ROUTE/TIME OF JOURNEY/UNHELPFUL STAFF/SYSTEM DIDN'T WORK PROPERLY/INFORMATION NOT CLEAR ENOUGH

• How useful did you find the telephone service/internet service this time?

More general discussion

• How useful have you found the telephone, internet and SMS/text messaging services in the past?
• What types of information do you contact Traveline Scotland for? PROBE FOR TIMETABLE INFO/TICKET PRICES/INFO ON DELAYS
• Have you usually found the information that you were looking for?

HANDOUT LIST OF TRAVELINE SCOTLAND INFORMATION SERVICES. Give them a minute to look over them.

• Were you aware of all these services?
• What types of information do you think should be available that isn't on this list? (PROBE FOR COST FOR TOTAL JOURNEY/DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE/ ROAD WORK/DELAY INFORMATION)
• IF SUGGESTIONS MADE. If this information was available how likely would you be to use Traveline Scotland services/public transport?
• After contacting Traveline Scotland about a journey, have you gone on to make this journey with the information you were provided with?
• IF YES. Have you continued to use this mode of transport for journeys' of this type? Why? (PROBE IS THERE A CONNECTION BETWEEN GOOD TRAVEL INFORMATION SERVICES AND MODAL SHIFT)
• IF NO Why not? Did you continue to use the car/same mode as before/didn't make the journey? Why did you continue to use the car? (PROBE DID NOT HAVE INFORMATION ABOUT PUBLIC TRANSPORT OPTIONS/CAR USE IS CHEAPER/EASIER/MORE RELIABLE ETC…

Explore the use of TLS for different types of journey - eg one off vs regular, short vs long distance journeys, commuting vs leisure etc.

Reasons how TLS did or did not contribute to modal change:

• Do they continue to use TLS for each journey, or once established how best to make a journey do they not need to use it again?
• Do they return to TLS to plan new (unknown) journey's, for example holiday's?
• Were they prompted to change modes by the discovery of otherwise unknown travel options?
• Did they change modes because of cost factors?
• Did they change modes because of journey times?
• Other factors?

5) Car behaviour (attitudes towards the car) - 15 mins

• How many of you have at least one car in your household? PROBE FOR MORE THAN ONE.
• Are you the driver or the passenger of the car?
• How often do you use a car in an average week?
• What types of journey do you use the car for? PROBE FOR GOING TO WORK, SHOPS/TOWN CENTRE, VISITING FAMILY AND FRIENDS, GOING AWAY FOR A WEEKEND/ TAKING CHILDREN TO AND FROM SCHOOL etc…
• Why do you use the car, rather than public transport? GO TO SECTION 6 EXERCISE
• Are there any journey types that you now use public transport for that you used to drive?

6) Solutions to facilitate modal shift - 15 mins

• Earlier on in the discussion we talked about how many of you had cars, how often you used them and what types of journey you used them for?
• We would now like to have a discussion about how to reduce people's reliance on their cars and to encourage them to use public transport. Earlier we discussed some of the positives and negatives of using public transport and cars.

GROUP EXERCISE. Split into 2 groups. HANDOUT FLIPCHART PAPER AND PENS. We would like you to make

a) a list of what would make you use public transport more and

b) a list of what you think the Government and local councils should be doing. They can be either practical or ideal solutions.

• Expand on travel information services - it would be preferable to spend the time on this part first in case you run out of time.
• How much do you think travel information services such as Traveline Scotland encourage people to use public transport over their cars?
• Do you think there will be an increase/decrease/no change for the demands of travel information services such as Traveline Scotland in the future? Why do you say this?

This is the end of the discussion. Thank participants for their time, distribute incentives and take signatures.

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