Travel habits outside of the daily transport triangle were also discussed in the interviews and noted down in the travel diaries. Parents indicated a variety of activities and locations they were travelling to. Examples were to children’s sport events, to visit relatives and friends, to buy goods at the store, and to take part in the Norwegian tradition of visiting a cabin outside of the city. The data on how parents reported travelling outside of the transport triangle will be compared to the data on how they travelled in the triangle. Because transport is much more varied during the after work hours and on weekends, the frequency at which parents choose a transport mode for other trips is discussed using 3 categories:
Main mode, regular use, rare use.
Participants who did not mention using a mode or who said it was of seldom use, were counted under rare use for that mode. When a participant said that they travelled with a mode on a somewhat regular basis, combining this mode with others to move around that commentary was counted under regular use.
Participants who said they travel primarily with one mode and none other for trips outside of the triangle were counted under main mode. These participants did not indicate any other mode they use regularly other than the car. A trend appeared in the data which suggested that people who chose the car tended to stick with that mode, rarely branching out to use the other ones. The opposite was true of other modes, where participants indicated utilizing a mixture transport forms to get around.
All participants mentioned riding in a car outside of the transport triangle. This ranged from people who would occasionally catch a ride with friends and family to those who used the car on a daily basis. Almost all of the parents who
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answered that they drive the car as the main mode outside of the transport
triangle also indicated that they use the car as their main source of transport on at least one of the segments of the triangle. Moreover, many parents who did not choose the car inside the triangle reported travelling with the car outside the triangle. A father (age 31 with 2 children) who mainly walks to and from work and the day care reported that his family regularly uses the car for other trips. The most common of these trips would be when visiting friends and family not living within walking distance, when purchasing a large amount of food at the grocery store, and also when travelling to the mountains to the family cabin.
Another participant, a mother (age 31 with 1 child) who reported cycling as her main mode of transport in the triangle, said her family drives the car for various activities during the weekends. One of these was to travel to her parent’s house on Sundays for dinner. She explained that travelling with other modes was simply not convenient enough for them.
(…) if we are to go there for a Sunday dinner, it is very easy for us to take the bus down to Oslo central station and then take the train out to
Lillestrøm. But this way we would use about an hour on public transport, and in addition it costs us a lot more money than if we were to just drive the car from here and out to Lillestrøm in 15 minutes. When we are three people I figure that we are three people in a car and therefore not so damaging on the environment as if one single person had decided to make the same trip with the car.
The situation described above was common across the sample. Not only was the car utilized regularly by parents outside the triangle by parents who also used it regularly inside the triangle, but moreover, the car was driven outside the triangle by parents who chose other modes inside. Parents reported no less need for the car during after work hours. In fact, the data suggests that the car was in more need at these times.
When trips were 1 km or less, participants in the sample reported a higher tendency to walk, whether that was taking the child to the neighbors for a play
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date or to a close store to purchase a few needed food items. Bicycles were also ridden occasionally on weekends and at after work hours as a mode of
transportation. A father (age 43 with 3 children) who in every other instance indicated the car as the main mode of transport, described in his travel diary cycling with the family 3 km on a Saturday to visit a nearby beach. He also wrote that he rode the bicycle when making a 1 km journey on a Sunday to play tennis with his wife.
When participants were asked to respond to how frequently they either walked or bicycled on trips, the answers differed from those who chose the car. Bikers and walkers tended to use a mixture of modes on other trips. Therefore, these were never reported as main modes. The percentage of participants who said they regularly walk for trips outside of the triangle was around 30%, while the percentage of those who said they rarely walk was 70%. As for the riding of bicycles, 21% of participants said they regularly use the bicycle for making other trips, while 79% reported they rarely did.
A little under half of all participants said they take public transportation regularly outside of the transport triangle. All other parents said they rarely ride on the public transport. No one used this mode as their main and only source of
transport outside of the triangle. Although parents did show a tendency to travel on the public transport with children more often outside of the triangle, this did not match the number of parents who claimed to take public transport when alone inside the triangle yet only use the car outside when travelling with the family.
Participants as a whole were more likely to use the car outside the triangle than inside.
Participants who reported driving the car on a regular basis were very likely to report only the car as their mode of transport. These participants were more likely to live in areas where the car was needed to buy food at the grocery, to deliver children at extracurricular activities, and visit friends and family. These people said they rarely use any other mode of transport.
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On the other hand, Parents who reported one of the non-automobile modes of transport for trips outside the triangle reported a mixture of modes and not just one. For example, almost all parents who reported riding the bicycle regularly also reported a higher frequency of walking and taking public transportation.