Political

How transport policy often gets it wrong: shorter travel times aren’t all they’re cracked up to be

I’ve often thought I’m unusual. Not only for my fondness for paperclip facts but also for my fondness of my commute time.

I don’t really want a shorter commute. It’s my time to listen to podcasts and audio books. On occasions when I have a shorter commute I don’t end up using the saved time for some wonderful self-improvement, to finally write that sci-fi novel about a general election in which regulating time travel is the big issue, or to sit at home listening to said podcasts or audio books. Rather the extra time slips away without that much to show for it, save my lingering frustrating at not having listened to as much.

Yet the rhetoric of transport policy is all about how shorter travel times are good. So I’ve assumed that I’m just a weird outlier. After all, transport experts are fearsomely expert.

But, in good (or is it bad?) news, I’ve now discovered that Transport for London has discovered that there are really quite a lot of people like me:

The research emerged from a question he was asked two and a half years ago by the head of customer strategy for the underground – do customers make use of their travel time or is it a disutility?

The company undertook desk research, quantitative, qualitative and ethnographic work, which uncovered some insights around the concept of time from a customer perspective.

According to the research, 74% of commuters perceived their journey to be worthwhile, and 69% said it was productive.

These findings runs contrary to the transport industry’s traditional preconception that journey time is a disutility, or inconvenience. But while over half of customers surveyed ( 53%) still wished they could eradicate journeys altogether, 47% said they would miss it if they did not have to travel because they feel the time is worthwhile.

Something to remember next time you’re thinking of transport policy. Speed often isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

9 responses to “How transport policy often gets it wrong: shorter travel times aren’t all they’re cracked up to be”

  1. Having just changed (reduced by a lot) my commute time I found myself with similar thoughts! Though I’m not sure I’d swap back as I have much more freedom over using that time. If i don’t make as constructive use then that is my failing!

  2. “According to the research, 74% of commuters perceived their journey to be worthwhile, and 69% said it was productive”

    Strange, considering I’d say well over half the people I see on the tube in the mornings are just sitting there doing nothing.

    • How do you know they’re doing nothing, though? Quite apart from the possibility that they’re listening on discreet headphones to audiobooks like Mark (I play audiobooks on my car stereo on journeys of any length), you can’t see what might be going on in their inner lives that the forced idleness of transport makes possible.

    • I always used to find that doing nothing on a commute was quite restful and therapeutic, a nice time to unwind, so I wouldn’t say that doing nothing was necessarily a waste.

  3. The great God CAR unfortunately seems to take precedence for too many people. In rural areas one does not have the luxury of good public transport which is being drastically reduced after annual cuts – sometimes more frequent cuts when a provider goes bust i.e. Webbers, Quantock Motors and now Nippy Bus in the West Country.
    I am involved with re-opening lines and extending rail services in the West. Does anyone in Chard know of an organisation trying to re-open Chard Junction Station?

  4. A convenient relatively smooth and uncrowded commute is useful time for reading, thinking or just chilling out, so it’s OK as far as I am concerned if it takes a little longer than a more stressed out alternative, such as driving on busy streets. If it involves a lot of changing, standing, being jostled, lurching stops and starts and so forth, then that is a different story.

  5. Couldn’t agree more. Now that I live outside London, I look forward to quiet time on the train whenever I have to go up to town. I catch up with emails and get a lot of administration done. And I have a book for the tube.

  6. In my last job, the journey to or from work worked out typically as about eight minutes in car, ten minutes walking, one hour on train and a few minutes (say five) on a station platform. Going in on the train, I read the paper and saw other people on laptops etc. Coming back I read a book or the newsletter or magazine from some cause (Liberal Democrats even) or not infrequently, wrote poetry. The time useless for anything other than getting from A to B (or B to A) was in the car. The rest was useful unless, of course, there were severe train delays.

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