Research Information and References
Traveline and its Partners' internal information
Traveline gathers this information from its monitoring of call centres:
- call volumes
- Average wait times
- Average durations
- Ineffective calls
- time of day and day of week
- Out of hours calls
- Regional comparisons
- Transfer calls between regions
- Mystery shopping results
Methodology: Weekly stats from the BT 0870/0871 platform and returns from the telephone systems at each call centre. Counts of calls in each category and not of the characteristics of each call.
Sampling: 100% of telephone calls
Traveline gathers this information from its monitoring of the Traveline internet portal:
- source of enquiries to the portal including the proportion via Google, the proportion from the main referring sites and the number who type in the URL directly.
- keywords most used in Google to find the portal www.traveline.info or www.traveline.org.uk
- what options people choose on the portal page, including whether to select a region or refer to the other information.
- the number of enquiries directed from the portal to each region.
- Feedback on portal design
Methodology: Google Analytics, records since summer 2007 covering a change of web design in November 2007. Traveline records some key figures each quarter. The Analytics can be used on recent data to answer specific questions about user behaviour.
Sampling: Google Analytics 100% of use of portal. Feedback on portal design amounted to about 40 responses, mainly on the prototype website during summer 2007.
Traveline regional website and call cente Logs:
- the number of enquiries counted by each region.
- time enquiry made
- how far ahead people enquire
- travel time requested and travel time offered
- location of origin and destination of journeys
- points that interchange is offered and frequency at each
Methodology: Each of the journey planners used by Traveline has logs that record this information. However no one has done much analysis of these logs or compared the data from different journey planners for comparability.
Sampling: 100% of journeys are recorded but in most systems logs would need to be systematically collected to prevent old logs being overwritten.
Kizoom provides data to Traveline about the use of the Traveline SMS service in most parts of England and Wales:
- SMS volumes
- Quality of service delivered
- Usable and Unusable responses
- Time of day and day of week
- Top 10 stops
- Local authority and regional comparisons
Methodology: Monthly reports which count the number of messages in each category. They do not provide service in London, Scotland and Yorkshire.
Sampling: 100% of messages
Traveline web questionnaire gathers the following information in Wales, East Anglia and East Midlands:
- the top journey purposes
- whether enquiries start or end in the region
- mode of travel used
- whether the journey planner had influenced the transport mode they used.
- how many people had used the SMS service and whether they had mobile phones.
- whether people say they are satisfied with the website
- whether first time users intend to use the website again.
- alternatives sources of information people would use if the web were not available.
- additional features that are most requested.
- how did people find the website.
Methodology: questionnaire on PTIcymru, East Anglia and East Midlands websites - www.traveline.info
Sampling: Self selecting. Questionnaire asks for age, gender, employment status etc, in order to compare profile of the sample with any profile from another source.
Contribution Made By Traveline Scotland to Modal Shift research in Scotland gathers the following information:
- patterns of bus use related to numbr of cars in the household, and household income
- the profile of Traveline Scotland users in respect of income, car ownership and use of buses.
- The effect of contacting Traveline Scotland on influencing travel for different types of journey purpose.
- the characteristics of those who switch modes after contacting Traveline Scotland.
- The extent to which Traveline Scotland users are willing to reduce their car use.
- gender and rural/urban differences in "will use car regardless".
- groups who way they are most likely to travel by public transport if they have reliable information.
- What type of trips Traveline is used for.
- gender preferrences for using Traveline Scotland web and telephone services.
- additional features people would like to see.
Methodology: Telephone survey, and 2 focus groups
Sampling: 223 telephone interviews giving a 29% response rate using contact details from the Scottish Household Survey, who had given permission to be contacted and who were identified to have telephoned Traveline or used the Traveline internet service. Of 10 people recuited for each focus group, 7 attended the focus group in Edinburgh and 5 attended in Glasgow. They were a mix of males and females who were all frequent users of Traveline Scotland.
Lancashire County Council project with Socialdata
- barriers to the use of sustainable transport.
- % of people "who would use Public Transport", actually do so.
- Of people giving subjective reasons for not using public transport, % giving information as a barrier.
- age bands that are under represented and over represented as users of public transport.
Methodology: Research by Socialdata for Lancashire County Council
Sampling: Interviews conducted in Preston, South Ribble, Lancaster and Morecambe
Traveline South West research:
- Attitudes towards Public Transport. Current usage of public transport and purpose/frequency of journeys made, disposition towards public transport, and respondent's image of public transport.
- Awareness and Usage of travel information services
- Where calls to the Traveline telephone service are made from (work, home etc),
- Satisfaction with the Traveline telephone service, action taken as a result of the call.
- how respondants had become aware of the Traveline service.
- how likely respondants were to use traveline in the future, their
preferred medium of delivery.
- what features they would like to see added to Traveline (fares, RTI etc).
Methodology: On street and telephone interviews
Sampling: 500 on street in towns SW England, 200 by telephone calling Traveline SW call centre customers
PTIcymru annual market research report:
- awareness of telephone public transport information services by social class and use of transport modes.
- awareness of internet public transport information services by social class and use of transport modes.
- use of sources of public transport informaton in the last 6 months
- which organisations have been seen or heard advertised or promoted in the last 6 months
- where did you see Traveline promoted
Methodology: Interviews conducted face to face in the homes of respondents by Beaufort Research
Sampling: Omnibus sample designed to be representative of the adult population resident in Wales aged 16 and over. 952 interviews
Research during the setting up of Traveline
External sources of relevant information
References that may be useful
Go back to Travelinedata
© traveline 2008, Last updated: 29 November 2011