AÑOS ENTRE 20 Y 21 AÑOS MAYOR A 21 AÑOS

There were several main disincentives quoted by numerous respondents. The first was the unacceptability of having a broken journey. If the journey necessary to access work from home by public transport involves changing buses, people seem to be highly unlikely to take this option:

interviewer Do you ever take any a bus or train?

respondent No. Unfortunately it’s not, it’s at least two bus journeys and they’re not convenient in terms of walking and getting two bus journeys from where I live so, from that logistical point its unpractical, that would take me longer than driving and there’s no direct train route (ST1)

respondent …well I needed to you know change bus but that even more time consuming and er generally I took the bus and I walk something like 15 minutes which is really the time I am concerned about (DL1)

There were a number of reasons given for this, which should perhaps be noted by transport planners who rely on models of feeder services and interchanges (not really relevant to Birmingham, except insofar as the city centre itself acts as an interchange). A number of respondents mentioned the existence of the inner and outer orbital bus routes, which facilitated access to a point near the University, but not quite near enough. The unpredictability of the weather was one consideration in avoiding changes, especially when combined with health or safety issues:

respondent Yeah. And I should say, I don’t whether this is relevant, but I had a stroke five years ago and sometimes waiting for a bus in the cold is probably not the best thing for me (SA6)

Cost was also quoted as a reason for avoiding using public transport, particularly when the costs were compared to the perceived costs of driving and parking:

respondent …I did look into it once and it was more expensive than driving. So it would be the price; I don’t think frequency of the trains is necessarily the issue. Because they are reasonably OK (JA6)

respondent OK, cost, definitely! At the moment, even if I bought some sort of saver card, for a train, it would still cost roughly what it would be for my car. Possibly a little bit more. If you build in the convenience factor of having the car, there’s no way that anyone’s gonna get me out of my car. Reliability, certainly another factor. So cost and reliability I would say are the two main ones (BR7)

However, the temporal factor was primary based on a distrust of the reliability of bus services. On a precautionary basis, people seem unwilling to risk missing a connection and therefore having to waste time waiting, especially if this takes place in conditions seen as unacceptable (i.e. on the street rather than in a station). Thus unreliability was the primary concern of those whose potential bus journey to work would not entail changes:

respondent I generally drive into the school because if I take the buses, buses are not so convenient because of mainly we’re concerned about the time and er and the public transport is always delayed … they are not that kind of on time (DL1) It was accepted that this lack of reliability was caused to some degree by congestion itself, but was still considered to be primarily the responsibility of the operators rather than other drivers. In pursuing the question of what would make public transport use a viable option, this factor of reliability rated higher than other considerations such as the frequency of the services.

The fact that some bus routes were not direct enough also figured as a disincentive:

respondent …there’s also one bus that takes a very tortuous route here, its unreliable as well apparently … there’s one point of the journey where you approach one roundabout and then about ten minutes later you come back to the same roundabout from a different direction, so it’s a really long journey, I have done it when the weather’s bad (GMR1)

Overcrowding was also regarded as a problem:

respondent The problems with buses I find are overcrowded – I don’t like standing. Even if I came on the bus, for a 20 minute journey, I don’t think you could read standing up. So…(HC5)

As was security, in terms of waiting for a bus in the dark, seen as an issue even for parking on campus:

respondent And if I’m working late in the evening, the last thing I want to be doing is hanging around a bus stop wondering if I’ve missed the one at half hour – or walking for 15 minutes. So… the car is convenient ‘cause I’d only get

mugged. Although if you park on the gravel car park, you can get mugged up there, quite likely. Regularly (HC6)

We can see this as a call for hypothecated revenues to be spent on bringing the car-parks up to scratch, something promised by the University’s transport policy.

On the other hand, some respondents quoted other reasons for ruling out public transport altogether, meaning that an analysis of the processes of juggling resources in making travel decisions would be entirely wasted in some cases. This rejection of public transport was ingrained and based on questions of status and social stereotyping:

respondent …The thing I find that I disagree about buses is the people on them, I mean the grammar is unbelievable, you know I mean you know, I mean they banned cigarettes though you often get cigarettes, but the grammar, well you know well I think something should be done, well it’s a danger the grammar on the buses (SA6)9

respondent No I hate public transport anyway especially when you take into account, second level on buses, the smell and the swearing, sometimes people smoke, even drink, so I hate public transport(DY5)

respondent I’m afraid if if if I had to come on the bus all the time, my attendance would drop dramatically, because I find the bus an incredible off-putting experience. Nearly every time I do it its usually enough to put me off for at least the next week or two…I don’t like crowds, I mean they’re just crowded and you have wait a long time…it’s almost entirely to do with reliability and cleanliness (PK10)

respondent yeah, as a rule I don’t like transport public transport just because its sometimes even not safe. For example I wouldn’t like my son to use the bus frequently (DY7)

interviewer Right, and does she [partner] have to travel to work or does she…? respondent she gets a taxi….

…..

respondent Always a taxi! (DH7)

Finally, two respondents actually spelt out the advantages of being able to combine travel with work:

respondent I mean well obviously I prefer the train if possible because it’s just nicer, I mean I used to read you know on the train and that

interviewer That was when you were working in Birmingham

respondent Well when I first started work that was when journey length really didn’t matter, because at that time we only had one car and my husband was working in Coventry so I really had to get the train (GMR7)

respondent I mean [G] … she’s my postdoc, she lives in Telford and takes the train and she she does papers on the train, so when she was she was going through the final reading of this, it really is the very final text, what she meant was she’ll read it on the train.

interviewer Yeah, yeah, so that’s another thing, with a train you can actually combine work and sort of

respondent Yeah sometimes you get a lot more reading done than [laughs] interviewer than you would normally? (SB5)