Travel Behaviour Demonstration Project

Travel Behaviour Survey Summary of Results

autumn/winter 2010/11

Report compiled October 2011 Authors: Mark Gregory, Oxfordshire County Council Tel: 01865 810461 Jacqui Cox, Oxfordshire County Council Tel: 01865 815713

Bicester Travel Survey: Summary of Results

This summary has been compiled by Oxfordshire County Council from various tables and reports presented by Socialdata.

Travel behaviour research undertaken by Socialdata with support from Sustrans on behalf of Oxfordshire County Council, Cherwell District Council and Bicester

Town Council in autumn/winter of 2010/11.

Executive Summary Over the autumn and winter of 2010/11, 2097 travel diaries were filled out by a randomly selected number of households from the Bicester area. A smaller number of these residents took part in face to face surveys. The travel diaries asked households to record their travel patterns (trip purpose, method of transport, time taken and destinations) for a week. The in-depth interview research was an survey which asked about the resident’s views on traffic congestion, speeds and volumes of traffic and their view on walking, cycling and public transport within the town. The travel survey was commissioned in 2010 to establish a base line of the current day to day travel patterns of Bicester residents before any of the Eco Bicester travel behaviour work took effect. (See Appendix A for further information.) Key Results

86 percent of respondents said they liked living in Bicester. 53 percent of respondents owned 2 or more cars, which compares with 31 percent in the

2010 National Travel Survey. This high level of second car ownership will be challenging when trying to persuade more people to try alternative modes for some of their journeys.

24 percent of trips were work related, 17 percent were shopping trips and 30 percent were

for leisure purposes. Transport policy often concentrates on commuter trips but this data shows how other trip purposes are just as important to consider.

22 percent of people walked, 4 percent used a bicycle, 48 percent were car drivers,

21 percent were car passengers, and 5 percent used public transport. Car passenger numbers increase a little at the weekends while public transport passenger numbers drop.

Over 20 percent of trips of less than one kilometre were made by either car drivers or car

passengers. The details of these trips need to be understood to see if this could be lowered, as well as looking at the trips made up to 3km and up to 5km.

Around 75 percent of the leisure trips surveyed were made to destinations that were 10

kilometres or further away. Understanding this type of finding highlights the need to link land use and transport planning.

48 percent of the trips surveyed were for journeys within the survey area. Increasing trips

made by walking or cycling is more likely to be effective at the local level and this suggests good potential for this kind of change.

Walking and cycling are seen as risky and public transport is perceived as slow and not

delivering people to where they want to go. The project needs to understand these concerns and issues and look to address them.

People support the need to invest and make improvements to public transport, cycling and

walking networks and think these will have a more positive impact on travel behaviour than limiting car traffic and restrictions on parking will not be.

Introduction Bicester is a large market town in Oxfordshire, 12 miles north east of Oxford, 50 miles south east of Birmingham and 50 miles north west of London. The town is one of the growth areas in the county. It has good transport links with the M40, A34 and A41 and a fast, frequent rail service to London and Birmingham. There are plans to upgrade the line from Oxford to Bicester and extend this to London with a new link, as part of the Evergreen 3 project. On 16 July 2009 the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) published a Planning Policy Statement (PPS): eco-towns, supplement to PPS 1 Delivering Sustainable Developments and within that announced North West Bicester as one of four locations which had the potential for an eco-town to be developed. Over the next year, the local authorities developed Eco Bicester - One Shared Vision in consultation with local businesses and local people. Eco Bicester is the future vision for the whole of Bicester. It is made up of numerous projects with the aim to make Bicester a better place to live, work and bring up a family. In support of this decision by DCLG a fund was set up for projects that could illustrate the latest thinking in environmentally-friendly living. A number of these projects were put into action in Bicester including the Travel Behaviour Demonstration Project with an aim of promoting transport by other means than the car with existing residents in the town. This will be a key project in delivering the transport elements of the Eco Bicester - One Shared Vision for the town. To establish a baseline of current travel patterns in Bicester the household survey was carried out. The area covered by the survey is shown on the map.

Household Diaries Cars in the household Number of cars per household (%)

Bicester National Travel Survey (2010)

Sustainable Travel Towns (post intervention programme)

No car 9 25 18

One 38 43 47

Two or more 53 31 35

Average (cars per house)

1.6 1.1 1.0

The level of second car ownership in Bicester is higher than the national average. This is likely to have a significant impact on the work of the travel behaviour demonstration work as academic work has found that the availability of a second car in the household increases the likelihood that a car will be used for short trips rather than other methods of transport. Type of Trip

Much of transport policy is concerned with work trips, but this shows up the importance of tackling other trip purposes too. The high proportion of leisure trips particularly stands out. Leisure trips tend to be far more flexible than work or school trips in terms of timing of a trip and the destination, so in many ways there could be more opportunities to change current practices. It will also be vital to understand the links between different trip purposes.

Percentage use of different forms of transport

The use of different forms of transport is very similar to that calculated from the household surveys carried out in 2007 when a computerised transport model was being developed. Car drivers and passengers combined made up 69 percent of trips, within the eco-development this level is expected to drop to 50 percent and eventually 40 percent. The demonstration project needs to look at all these results and propose an appropriate target for the existing town. There should certainly be potential for increasing walking and cycling trips at the weekend and the issues causing the drop in public transport need to be understood further. Distance vs. type of transport used

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

up to 1km 1.1 to 3km 3.1 to 5km 5.1 to10km

10km+

Distance

Per

cent

age

of tr

ips

of th

is d

ista

nce

Car as driver

Car as passenger

Public transport

Bicycle

Walking

Distance

Distance vs. trip purpose

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Education Shopping Leisure Work

Main trip purpose

Pe

rce

nta

ge

of t

rip

s

More than 10.0 km

Up to 10.0 km

Up to 5.0 km

Up to 3.0 km

Up to 1.0 km

This data shows that the majority of employees travel out of Bicester for their workplace destination while the majority of pupils and students travel within the town. There were a number of leisure trips made over a considerable distance. This chart shows up the land use and economic strategy links, but also shows that there are a considerable number of trips that are under 3km in length and these are what need to be looked at further with regards to a potential switch to walking or cycling.

Car trips and Bicester

48%

52%

Currently Bicester is viewed by some sections of the community as a dormitory town, with people living and spending leisure time there but travelling longer distances out of the town for work. The development of employment opportunities in the town will help to change this balance. As part of developing any employment sites we need to make sure that they have good quality sustainable travel links to them from the new and existing housing developments. Potential for environmentally-friendly travel?

31%

6%

34%

29%

Already using bus, walking, or cycling

Constraints - car only option

No adequate alternative to car

Alternative exists, use car out of choice

In-depth Interviews Perception of local traffic situation

• Car traffic in Bicester has increased during the past few years • Walking and cycling are more risky than car driving • Public transport is slow, does not go where I want at time I want

Perception of local traffic situation

Improvements by Mode

Concerns about the safety of walking and particularly cycling need to be addressed if more people are to be persuaded to try more environmentally-friendly transport, for example by offering good training, guided rides and walks and trial sessions. Interviewees were asked to consider the potential planning conflict between the car and eco-friendly travel and for each sustainable method of transport they strongly felt that it should be prioritised over the car. Public transport and walking were particularly favoured.

The perceived impact on travel choices of spending on eco- friendly transport

Factors that help people make more environmentally-friendly travel choices

The graph at the top of the page demonstrates that those interviewed could see a positive impact on people’s choice of transport method from investment in environmentally-friendly travel, particularly public transport and cycling. The second graph shows that they considered that improved facilities (particularly for cyclists and public transport passengers) would be most effective in bringing about a change in travel behaviour, rather than measures that would affect the ability to drive, such as limited parking availability and physical measures to limit car traffic.

Conclusions The data collected will be help the local authorities to measure the impact of measures put in place as part of the demonstration project. Understanding current transport practices will help us to set targets and enable us to tailor travel behaviour initiatives. The in-depth interviews have provided a useful insight into how people perceive transport in Bicester at the moment and their response to environmentally-friendly transport. It is encouraging to receive such positive feedback to the idea that investing in walking, cycling and public transport will encourage people to use these forms of transport more often. To have an impact on travel choices in Bicester we need to: Invest in sustainable travel modes to:

- fill in gaps in the network - change the public perception of walking, cycling and public transport - market what’s already there, and - encourage people to try out other modes of travel

Challenge:

- the need of a high level of second car ownership - the number of car trips made within Bicester - the number of work and leisure trips made outside of Bicester

Next steps Let’s set targets, look at physical improvements and put promotional incentives into action. We will keep monitoring and reviewing and demonstrate how travel behaviour work can help to meet the transport objectives of the Eco Bicester - One Shared Vision.

APPENDIX A Methodology Socialdata and Sustrans were commissioned to carry out travel behaviour surveys amongst residents in the Bicester area in the autumn and winter of 2010/11 by Oxfordshire County Council, Cherwell District Council and Bicester Town Council. The aim was to gain a better understanding of travel practices in the town as they currently are, ahead of any travel behaviour initiatives carried out as part of the demonstration project. This would provide the baseline data against which future initiatives would be judged. Sampling was agreed with Oxfordshire County Council and used a commercially available database of postal addresses and telephone numbers. Those taking place were sent the questionnaire and a combination of telephone calls to motivate people to complete the form and postal reminders was used. A sub-sample of these respondents were asked to take part in the in-depth interview survey. The Socialdata research methodology is known as the New KONTIV® Design and more information is available on their web site: http://www.socialdata.de/info/KONTIV_engl.pdf