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Chapter five: Reasons for contacting Traveline Scotland

This chapter of the report examines the main reasons why people contact Traveline Scotland and addresses the following research objectives:

• the types of journey Traveline Scotland was used for;
• investigate the reasons people elected to use public transport for these journeys, and
• investigate changes and improvements to Traveline Scotland which could further improve its contribution to the use of public transport.

Types of journey Traveline Scotland was used for

The main section of the telephone survey was based on the types of journey users of Traveline Scotland enquire about. Understanding the types of journey users make is important to Traveline Scotland and should help Scottish Executive understand the types of journeys Traveline Scotland is likely to facilitate. Only people who had used Traveline Scotland services within the previous 12 months were asked about the types of journey they make. This was to aid respondents' recall of actual journeys they have made. Table 5.1 illustrates the types of journey Traveline Scotland was used for. Other types of journey respondents mentioned included: going on holiday, going for a day out, going to the hospital and no journey in particular.

Table 5.1: Types of journey Traveline Scotland was used for

Q9. What type of journey(s), if any, did you use Traveline Scotland for?

The most common journeys people had contacted Traveline Scotland about included going to their place of work, education or learning (29%) and visiting family and friends (27%). 15% of the sample had used Traveline Scotland for going to the shops in the town centre and going out in the evening for leisure purposes (14%) and one in eight (12%) used the services to enable them to go away for a weekend. No-one used Traveline Scotland to find out about transport options to take their children to and from school. Some of the females in the groups were reluctant to take children to school on public transport because, especially during the morning rush hour, they were cramped as well as expensive.

Most people in the focus groups said they used the bus either daily to get to work or to see their family or friends and, where they had one, used their cars for other journeys, such as doing the shopping or going away for the weekend. Trains were mainly used for longer journeys, because they were more spacious, comfortable and more cost effective on longer journeys. Where people made a variety of journeys, Traveline Scotland was not used for everyday journeys that were usually made by bus or underground. Rather, participants contacted Traveline Scotland for information about longer, irregular or one-off journeys. The information from TLS formed part of the decision about mode choice.

However, other participants also chose to use the car for longer journeys, journeys that involved children or for going to the supermarket: journeys that were considered to be more 'hassle'. Participants did not consider contacting Traveline Scotland for these journeys, because they felt there was no practical alternative.

I drive my partner's car and would use it for travelling outwith the city or for longer journeys.
Male

For awkward shopping or when you really have to go to IKEA and you know you'll never get there straight on the bus!
Female

Those in employment were more likely to contact Traveline Scotland about journeys to and from their place of work than other users as table 5.2 illustrates. Men were also more likely than women to have contacted one of the services about travelling to work. Females and those who are unemployed were more likely to contact Traveline Scotland about how they could visit family/friends. Females were also more likely to enquire about public transport solutions to enable them to go out in the evening. Although more females than males contacted Traveline Scotland services about public transport in the evening, several females in the focus group sessions said they were reluctant to use public transport at night because they felt unsafe and so chose to use their cars as a precautionary measure.

I think they should bring back conductors. Since they've taken them away I think the safety for one, especially on the buses has got worse.
Female

Table 5.2: Journey types by sub-group

Q9. What type of journey(s), if any, did you use Traveline Scotland for?

Reasons for not making a particular journey after contacting Traveline Scotland

A quarter (21%) of TLS users did not make the journey they enquired about, the main reasons being that they no longer needed to make the journey (30%) or it would be easier to use their own transport (13%) as table 5.3 illustrates. The most commonly mentioned other responses included: a change to personal circumstances, journey is too complicated and bought own transport.

Table 5.3: Reasons why the journey was not made after contacting Traveline Scotland

Q12. Why did you not make this journey after contacting Traveline Scotland?

Preferred method of contacting traveline scotland

The preferred method of contacting Traveline Scotland was through the website: 56% of people said they preferred this method and 35% said they preferred to use the telephone service. ⁷

A higher proportion of females than males preferred the telephone service as table 5.4 illustrates and there is little variation of preference by age.

Table 5.4: Preferred method to contact Traveline Scotland

Q7. How do you prefer to contact Traveline Scotland

Participants in the focus groups were asked to give their spontaneous thoughts about which methods of contacting Traveline Scotland they preferred. This information reinforced the findings from the survey: females showed a preference for the telephone service saying they preferred to speak to someone to reassure them that the information they have is correct.

I like to speak to somebody, not this inanimate object that sits in front of me.
Female

Some people also said they preferred to use the telephone service because they found the website confusing to use. Most of the participants who had used both the internet and telephone services acknowledged that the website became easier to use once they had familiarised themselves with it, especially those who used the internet at their desks while they were at work.

To remind participants of how the telephone and internet services work, two exercises were included. Firstly participants were given a handout of stills from the website which took them through an actual journey, using a variety of transport solutions. They were given 5 minutes to look through the handout and asked questions about how easy or difficult they found it to follow and whether they understood what was going on at each of the stages. Many people found the journey difficult to follow and in particular found the transport icons confusing and badly positioned.

I'm fairly IT literate and it's pretty much what my job is. The wee icons underneath 'service', I can find the bus and the train and the walking, then on the trains there's what appears to be a timetable and something which I recognise from a business diagram, then a 1 and a 2 with an 'r', I've no idea. It's an electric disco on the first and second trains. I've got no idea what that is.
Male

Yeah, I'm sort of losing it a bit. Maybe it makes sense if you use it a couple of times.
Female

The second exercise was used to remind participants about the telephone service. One of the participants called the telephone service and asked for information about the same journey that had been included in the internet exercise. The call was put on speakerphone so that everyone in the group could hear. On the whole, participants were very impressed by the telephone service, preferring it to the website. The findings after these exercises were conducted showed that the opposite is true, in that the participants showed a preference for the telephone service, not the internet service.

That was brilliant! That was fantastic!
Male

Types of information requested from Traveline Scotland

The clear majority (88%) contacted Traveline Scotland for times for a specific route and one in ten people contacted them for individual season ticket prices (11%) or information about the quickest route (10%) as table 5.5 illustrates.

Most people from the focus group sessions said that they had called the telephone service or used the website to find pricing information and were either told to contact the travel operator direct for this information or were unable to find it on the website. This was commonly mentioned as a flaw with the Traveline Scotland service. Participants in the groups found this inconvenient and could not understand why a public transport information service could not provide this. As a result, several people said they prefer to contact travel operators directly, rather than use Traveline Scotland for only half of their information needs.

Since this project was commissioned new services have been made available - price information and bus times by SMS - and new services will be added to improve the Traveline Scotland service. ⁸ The first service will be welcomed by many users, as 11% of those surveyed said they contacted TLS for information about journey and season ticket prices and another 4% enquired about information on the cheapest route.

Only 4% of those surveyed had used the SMS service in the previous 12 months. The focus groups reflected this, with only one male in the group saying he had used the SMS service. However, he found it problematic and illogical.

The text through Traveline thing I think would be brilliant but I don't know the number of my bus stop, it's on the bus stop, unless I'm standing there, in which case there's a timetable.
Male

Other information Traveline Scotland users enquired about included information for the easiest route (8%), what combinations of public transport were available for a particular journey (8%) and to find out if it is possible to make the journey (3%) as table 5.5 illustrates. Being provided with combinations of public transport solutions is important to people since it provides users with greater flexibility and control over their journey decisions and as mentioned previously 17% of TLS users were multi-modal (ie they used both car and public transport at least once a week) so will require information about different modes of transport.

I think the advantage of Traveline is you can phone them and you can ask them several options, whereas if you go to the station you only get the trains. If you phone Bus Line you only get the buses. Whereas Traveline can give you all the other options, which helps if you're going to far flung places.
Male

Respondents in the survey were asked a follow up question to gauge if the Traveline Scotland service provided them with the types of information they were looking for (at Q18a). As table 5.5. illustrates, majorities of people reporting receiving the information they were looking for from the Traveline Scotland service. For example 93% of those people who were looking for 'times for a specific route' received the information they were looking for, compared to 5% that did not.

Table 5.5: Types of information

Q18a UNPROMPTED What types of information have you contacted Traveline Scotland for?

Q18b Did you get the information you were looking for?

Other changes and improvements to traveline scotland

Almost everyone in the survey recognised the importance of providing high quality travel information to inform and reinforce travel decisions as table 5.6 illustrates. Comfort and cleanliness, direct routes, cost of the journey, overall journey time and personal safety were also important to people. The ease of access on/off vehicles was the least important factor to people generally, but as might be expected more important to those aged 65+.

Table 5.6: Factors important in encouraging the use of public transport

Q20. How important are the following factors in encouraging you to use public transport more, on a scale of very important to not important at all?

These factors were also important to people in the focus groups. In addition to good travel information participants in the focus groups felt that Traveline Scotland could be improved if it was advertised and marketed more widely. There was a sense that it was only reaching those people who are already using public transport. Advertising should be increased to include places were there are high volumes of car users, rather than just at bus stops, on buses and in train stations.

Two of the participants in the Edinburgh group said they put the words 'transport information provider' into an internet search engine and Traveline Scotland didn't come up. Another participant from the Glasgow group made the following related comment.

I struggled to find it on the Google search, I couldn't remember its full address and I did a Google search….I couldn't find it so I ended up using something else.
Female

A couple of participants commented on the fact that you had to pay the national call rate to use Traveline Scotland instead of having a freephone number or at least a local charge. This is perhaps another issue that could be clarified.

The number is also in the Yellow Pages, right at the front, they give you the Traveline Scotland number and the Strathclyde public transport number. So I called that number because it was a local number rather than the Traveline number. I called the local number for information about timetables and fare information and was told to press 1, so I pressed 1 and it said 'for information you must call Traveline on 0870…. I went I don't want to call that number!'
Female

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