The Use of Travel Time by Rail Passengers in Great Britain

By Glenn Lyons, J. Jain, D. Holley. 2007

376 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In the face of a society that exhibits an increasing dependence on motorised mobility, the response of transport policy is one that remains grounded in the pursuit of quicker journey times. Less time spent travelling is assumed to convert 'unproductive' time into economically valuable time. This paper explores an alternative perspective on travel time. It seeks to examine the notion that travel time, rather than being wasted, can and does possess a positive utility. This brings into question the extent of assumed economic benefits derived from schemes and policies intended to reduce journey times. Specifically the paper reports on a national mail-back questionnaire survey of 26,221 rail passengers in Great Britain conducted in autumn 2004. The survey examined how passengers used their time on the train, how worthwhile that time use was considered to be and the role of mobile technologies. The results paint a picture of travel time use in which the behaviour and opinions of commuters, business travellers and leisure travellers are compared and contrasted. A substantial if not overwhelming incidence of positive utility of travel time use is revealed, especially for business travel but also for commuting and leisure travel. In light of the survey evidence the paper points to the challenge of understanding the notion of productivity and offers some critical comments concerning the current approach to economic appraisal in Britain.

Subfields: Sociology and Political Science, Transportation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3fd85baadd1e72755e28d20baac42f5aeb204e4e

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Citations in the corpus

Business travel and mobile workers (2008, background): “17 (Lyons et al., 2007).”
Travel-based multitasking: review of the empirical evidence (2018, background): “Research predating smartphones suggests that 15 minutes is a possible threshold for active occupations on trains (Lyons et al., 2007) since it is not worth “unpacking” for very short trips (Watts & Urry, 2008).”
Travel and Subjective Well-Being: A Focus on Findings, Methods and Future Research Needs (2013, background): “Wellbeing enhancing activities can also be conducted while traveling to a destination, and there is growing empirical evidence that people use travel time to work, read, watch people, sleep and so forth (Lyons et al., 2007; Jain & Lyons, 2008; Ohmori & Harata, 2008).”
Preference for Restorative Situations: Interactive Effects of Attentional State, Activity-in-Environment, and Social Context (2010, background): “For example, the transportation literature includes reports that given predictable trip duration, some people count on restorative benefits from their commute by automobile or train because it gives them time to be alone, away from work and family demands ( Gatersleben & Uzzell, 2007 ; Hartig, 2007”
What makes travel pleasant and/or tiring? An investigation based on the French National Travel Survey (2012, background): “, 2005; Paez and Whalen, 2010); the subjective value of the time spent traveling, from wasted or lost to very worthwhile or well-spent (Lyons et al., 2007; Gottholmseder et al., 2009; Gripsrud and Hjorthol, 2012; Susilo et al., 2012; Lin, 2012); latent variables representing “specific trip (dis)util”
Satisfaction-induced travel behaviour (2019, background): “, 2015; Schneider & Willman, 2019), and that the performance of activities during (public transport) trips can affect travellers’ evaluation of the trip made (e.g., Ettema et al., 2012; Lyons et al., 2007; Tan et al., 2018).”
Travel satisfaction revisited : on the pivotal role of travel satisfaction in conceptualizing a travel behavior process (2017, background): “Although these activities might improve the positive utility of travel, some of the activities performed during travel, such as relaxing, reading a book or listening to music, might be attempts to abate boredom (Ettema et al., 2012; Lyons et al., 2007; Mokhtarian et al., 2015).”
Valuing Transit Service Quality Improvements (2008, background): “…time and 13% most of the time), reading (54% some of the time and 34% most of the time), resting (16% some of the time and 4% most of the time), and talking to other passengers (15% some of the time and 5% most of the time), and so place positive utility on such time (Lyons, Jain, and Holley 2007).”
The gift of travel time (2008, methodology): “The concept of travel time as a gift has emerged from qualitative research conducted as part of a UK research study funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council entitled ‘Travel Time Use in the Information Age’ (see also Lyons and Urry, 2005, Lyons et al., 2007).”