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Chapter four: Traveline Scotland and modal shift

The over-arching aim of the research was to find out how much and in what ways Traveline Scotland has contributed to modal shift in Scotland. This chapter addresses this aim and the following related research objectives:

• determine how many journeys have been made by public transport that would otherwise have been made by car, as a result of accessing information from Traveline Scotland;
• determine how many journeys continued to be made by car and the reasons why people elected not to use public transport for these journeys;
• determine how many journeys were made by public transport which would not have been made otherwise and the reasons for the journey; and
• examine the short-term and long-term changes in transport behaviour .

To measure how much Traveline Scotland has contributed to modal shift, "baseline" data on people's existing travel behaviour needed to be established before a measure was taken of what effect Traveline Scotland has had on this behaviour. To do this, respondents were asked what types of journey they had contacted Traveline Scotland about to get them thinking about the types of journey they make on a day-to-day basis, such as going to their place of work or visiting their family or friends. The full list of journeys respondents were asked about can be found in appendix B and will be analysed more fully in chapter five.

To provide a more accurate baseline measure for each journey type, respondents were asked a series of questions which established their travel patterns before and after contacting Traveline Scotland. In this series of questions (Q10-Q17), respondents were asked what modes of transport they used to make a particular journey before contacting Traveline Scotland for information (Q10) and the modes of transport they used for that same journey after they had called Traveline Scotland (Q14). Only those people who had actually made any journeys of this type since contacting Traveline Scotland were included in this part of the analysis. These questions (Q10-Q17) were used to measure how much modal shift, if any, had occurred. The questionnaire can be found in appendix B.

For modal shift to have occurred respondents' use of the car should have decreased and public transport use should have increased since contacting Traveline Scotland. Analysis of these key questions shows that some modal shift has occurred. For all journeys, respondents' use of the bus and train is reported as having increased since contacting Traveline Scotland and their use of the car has decreased, as Table 4.1 illustrates.

Table 4.1: Before and after contacting Traveline Scotland - modes of transport used

Q10 Before contacting Traveline Scotland, how would you normally have made this type of journey?

Q14 After contacting Traveline Scotland, how did you actually make this journey?

Table 4.1 illustrates the percentage of respondents using each mode to make the four most common journeys before and after contacting Traveline Scotland. ⁶ Any significant differences are emboldened. After contacting Traveline Scotland, use of the bus and train has increased for most of these journeys. For visits to family and friends, use of the bus has significantly increased by 22 percentage points since contacting Traveline Scotland and use of the train by 10 percentage points. Reflecting this increase in public transport use, car use fell, most significantly for those who drive their cars (10 point decrease) to visit family and friends, rather than as a passenger in a car (2 point decrease).

Public transport use also increased for journeys to the supermarket, although a word of caution should be exercised due to the small sample size involved. Findings from the focus groups showed that people were quite unlikely to use public transport to make journeys to out of town supermarkets, preferring instead to use their cars. It was felt that the car was a more practical and cost-effective option. Some of the participants in the focus groups felt that the buses did not cater for people with shopping bags and by using their car they could unload shopping at their front door rather than walking from the nearest bus stop. The evidence from the focus group shows that modal shift is unlikely to have occurred for journeys to the supermarket, or to out of town venues, such as leisure centres.

I find the times when I still use the car is shopping. There's nowhere to put your shopping on the bus these days. Although I can understand why, because they have now made provision for the disabled which is all well and good. You can't go and do a decent amount of shopping and then inflict whoever you sit next to with all the sharp angles of the boxes.
Female

Analysis of the data before and after contacting Traveline Scotland shows that across all journeys 26% of respondents changed from using a car (driving or as a passenger) to using either the bus, train or underground. Those who had switched to public transport were more likely to be female (74%) than male (26%), to be aged 25-44 than other age groups, to have one car in the household and were on more than £15,600 and less than £26,000 per annum. However, this is the same as the profile of the sample as a whole suggesting that while there are demographic factors associated with contactingTLS, switching modes is not related to respondent demographics.

The survey evidence from the most common journeys suggests that modal shift is related to the receipt of travel information from Traveline Scotland - some people use different modes before and after contact. This does not mean that TLS has caused modal shift although since modal shift has occurred across a range of journey types, from visiting friends and family to going to work or education, it suggests that modal shift is not restricted to particular types of journey. The characteristics of "switchers" suggest that it is not specific to particular types of people. The data suggest that Traveline Scotland contributes to modal shift rather than modal shift being dependent on the types of journey respondents make or the types of people who contact TLS.

Although the before and after mode choices suggest a role of TLS, respondents own views were less clear. Those who had changed mode were as likely as not to attribute the shift to the information they had received from Traveline Scotland: some felt they would have made the change regardless of the information they received and others felt they would have been unlikely to make the change without information from Traveline Scotland as Table 4.2 illustrates.

Table 4.2: Likelihood of changing mode of transport without contacting Traveline Scotland

Q16. How likely would you have been to change to this mode of transport without contacting Traveline Scotland?

REASONS FOR NOT USING PUBLIC TRANSPORT AFTER CONTACTING TRAVELINE SCOTLAND

Although many respondents had changed from car to public transport, there remained those people who continued to use their car for journeys about which they had contacted Traveline Scotland. For example, 15% still drove to their work or place of education and 13% still drove to the shops in the town centre. This suggests that while information about public transport might be an important factor in facilitating change, the journey itself is the key: the information needs to lead the person to a better, more efficient, faster, cheaper journey. Accurate, up-to-date information might still lead the enquirer to the fact that public transport would take longer, would require a long walk, that a service does not exist at that time, leaving them with their existing mode. There is only so much that information can accomplish and it would be unrealistic to expect TLS to lead all enquirers to a public transport solution to their travel needs. To explore more fully the reasons why people elected not to use public transport for their journeys, open ended questions were asked of the following types of people:

• those who used a car only both before and after contacting Traveline Scotland
• those who used a car and public transport before contacting Traveline Scotland but only a car afterwards
• those who used public transport only before contacting Traveline Scotland and used a car and public transport afterwards, and
• those who only used public transport before contacting Traveline Scotland but who only use a car after contacting the service.

For those people who used a car before and after contacting Traveline Scotland the most popular reason they gave was that the car is more convenient and flexible (almost half of 14 responses) or that public transport takes too long.

For those who used a car and public transport before contacting Traveline Scotland but only a car afterwards and those who used public transport only before contacting Traveline Scotland and used a car and public transport afterwards (i.e. they had increased their car use) the only reason given was that public transport services are either limited or not available (although only 3 people fell into this category).

And finally, for those who used public transport before contacting Traveline Scotland but only used a car afterwards, the main reason was that the car is more convenient. Again, as above, only a very small percentage fell into this category (2).

Short-term and long-term changes

Once people have made the decision to change to another mode of transport or not, the majority continue to use this mode of transport. For each journey type, 86% or more said they were still using this type of transport at the time of interview.

The findings from the focus groups echoed this in that several participants felt that once they knew how to make a particular journey by public transport they would be fairly likely to continue using this, making long-term changes in their travel. The likelihood of continuing to use public transport depended on the day-to-day circumstances of the journey, such as whether children were involved, the weather and time of day. The contribution of Traveline Scotland was to expand the range of possibilities for journeys to help them make long-term changes in their transport behaviour.

Attitudes of Traveline Scotland users towards public transport and the caR

To understand why some people continue to use their cars, a series of attitude statements about using public transport and the car were incorporated into the telephone survey. This provides greater understanding of the factors that are likely to be important in encouraging drivers to switch from using their cars to public transport.

Even though 48% of respondents used their cars on most days, only 17% of Traveline Scotland users either strongly or tended to agree with the statement "I will always use my car regardless" compared to 47% who disagreed. Further evidence of the willingness of Traveline Scotland users to reduce their car dependence came from the 34% who agreed that they wanted to reduce their car use but did not know of any practical alternatives. Although there was a willingness to reduce car use, 40% acknowledged that it would be hard to do so.

Even though the sample was derived from people who had used Traveline Scotland or another travel information service, half (48%) said they would use public transport more often if they had reliable information about the services on offer. This emphasises the importance of providing high quality, reliable, public transport information and might indicate some important limitations in the information currently provided.

Table 4.3 groups respondents by their attitudes towards public transport and car dependency.

Table 4.3: Agreement with attitude statements about public transport and car dependency by sub-group

Statements

1. Peaked - I could not use public transport anymore than I currently do

2. Constrained - I would like to reduce my car use but do not know of any practical alternatives

3. Uninformed - I would travel more often by public transport if I had reliable information about the services on offer

4. Lazy - It would be easy for me to reduce my car use

5. Complacent - I will always use my car regardless

Q19. I am going to read out a number of statements, for each one, can you tell me how strongly you agree or disagree using the following scale?

Analysis at the sub-group level shows that men were more likely than women to say they will always use their car regardless, as were those who were employed or those living in more rural areas, as table 4.3 illustrates. Women were among those most likely to say they cannot use public transport any more than they currently do. As mentioned previously, women were significantly more likely than men to use the bus on a regular basis.

Although men and those who were employed were more likely to say they would use their car regardless, only a fifth of each group said this. The dominant views among these groups were that they were constrained, uninformed and were already making as much use of public transport as was practically possible. Together, these indicate that their travel choices might be more constrained by issues such as work-related trips that require a car.

Younger people aged 16-24 were the most likely of all age groups to have said they would travel more often by public transport if they had reliable information about the services on offer.

Peoples' experiences of, and attitudes towards public transport in their area were explored in more depth in the focus group sessions. The focus groups were conducted in Edinburgh and Glasgow so the majority of the comments referred to transport provision in the cities. Participants were asked to provide 'top of the head' responses about their attitudes towards public transport in their area. Perceptions varied depending on the mode of transport they were referring to. When talking about local bus services in the city, people used words such as; 'crowded', 'slow', 'expensive' and 'unreliable'. The predominant view from the focus groups was that public transport provision was generally not good enough to attract people out of their cars.

I would use public transport services if they got better and definitely safer. I would definitely use it. It is easier to just jump on a bus and take ten minutes instead of finding somewhere to park. It's actually cheaper to take the bus than park the car.
Female

I have a similar problem getting to and from work. Actually it's always coming home from work. The bus just seems to randomly ignore bits of the timetable.
Male

In comparison, other participants used words such as 'regular', 'value for money' and 'efficient'. Participants who held more positive views were more positive about using Traveline Scotland services. There were no particular differences between Edinburgh and Glasgow participants.

If I don't know where Royal Terrace is but I want to get a bus there from here the Traveline phone line is excellent for that.
Male

Most participants in the focus groups felt they were using public transport as much as they could and that the barriers to making more use of public transport reflected practical issues such as cost, safety and reliability rather than knowledge. Several, mainly female participants, felt that they could not justify the cost of public transport, especially when there were children involved. For these respondents it was easier and more cost effective to use their car in the city because it was cheaper to pay for car parking than bus fares.

I've got children. If my whole family, myself, my husband and two children, four of us going into town on a bus and back again, that's a pretty heavy cost. Even to weigh that up against car parking in the city centre, that's a serious consideration.
Female

I think my thing would be some sort of family tickets or something so that it makes it a bit more affordable. That's probably one of the main reasons why I don't go with my family on the bus because by the time you've bought four tickets its really expensive. And to weigh that up against your car parking and then also the convenience of having your car.
Female

We'll do anything but not use the car, but when you've got children there are so many times when you have to use the car because of practicalities and everything. You just can't go away up to Hillend ski slope on a bus or something.
Female

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