Ride Along: Frequent Travelers and Information Use During the Work Commute

Extensive research into passenger behavior and journey experience has been conducted over the years (Cox, Houdmont, & Griffiths, 2006; Evans & Wener, 2007; Lyons & Chatterjee, 2008). A prominent focus of the literature on this... [ view full abstract ]

Extensive research into passenger behavior and journey experience has been conducted over the years (Cox, Houdmont, & Griffiths, 2006; Evans & Wener, 2007; Lyons & Chatterjee, 2008). A prominent focus of the literature on this has been information provision and optimization in order to ensure high levels of passenger satisfaction (eg. ORR, 2012) – particularly, ensuring that information dispensed align with the specific context of the traveler. An important contextual factor is the nature of passenger’s pre-existing knowledge, particularly with frequent travelers or commuters.

Frequent travelers have been said to have “expert knowledge” (Gustafson, 2012) regarding their own commutes, resulting in an accumulation of relevant journey information (Dziekan, 2008). This could result in the development of behavioral characteristics, like a preference for the quickest route on their journey (Hine & Scott, 2000), or a requirement for more high-level knowledge during their journey, with limited responsiveness to additional information (Grotenhuis et al., 2007). In this manner, personal experience is an example of personal context that modifies information collection.

Taking the perspective of passenger expertise, the present study was conducted in order to glean an in-depth understanding of the journey experiences of frequent travelers, with the inclusion of their observations on their own information requirements, and a particular focus on disruption. Disruption is a pertinent situation within which to examine the requirement and use of additional information as it is where passengers are least satisfied, requiring the provision of additional information by rail services. Semi-structured “go-along” (Carpiano, 2009) interviews were carried out with the 8 participants (NB to date – with 16 participants by full paper submission), with the aim of collecting rich qualitative data about their work commutes, their information use during the process, and observations of when and how they utilised this information on their journey. Following this, thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2016) was used to discover prominent themes and ideas, which were then grouped in order to understand the overarching concerns of the participants, and the characteristics of their travel behaviour.

The qualitative analyses of these themes resulted in interesting findings on the nature of increased travel experience. Participants, for example, described their commute as being fairly reliable – disruption was seen as a rare occurrence for most of them. Additionally, their journeys involved little/no planning, with most participants arriving at the platform just a few minutes prior to departure. Participants had few alternative strategies in the face of disruption, other than to postpone a journey. In contrast, participants mentioned that they required increased information and planning on journeys that weren’t their regular commute. As well as being the hallmarks of expertise (e.g. Gustafson, 2012), these behaviors and expectations have a potential bearing on a commuter’s amenability to suggested alternative travel. This study is now being used to inform a repertory grid study of attitudes to different types of disruption depending on knowledge. Longer term, the output of this work will inform both general information provision strategy and personalisation of disruption information based on traveler experience.