Hemyock Parish Council

Fri, 19 Jun 2020 11:59:15 +0000

Travel by Bus Survey...

If you are willing & use The Bus Service, Chris Burridge-Barney would be grateful if you could complete the survey Below. Thank you

I am a Graduate Trainee Transport Planner at Devon County Council, and am being sponsored to undertake a part-time degree in Transportation Planning and Engineering at the University of Southampton. As part of this degree, I am producing a dissertation examining the impacts of Devon’s bus network, including removing barriers to employment, reducing congestion and pollution, and improving physical and mental health (by, for instance, reducing social isolation and providing transport for outdoor leisure trips).

I was therefore wondering if you would be able to circulate a survey I am using to collect data on why people use Devon’s bus network, what they would do if the buses were unavailable, and what impacts buses have on users (https://www.isurvey.soton.ac.uk/37229). Clearly, bus patronage levels are significantly reduced at present, but I would like respondents to focus on how they have used buses in ‘normal’ (i.e. pre-COVID) times. This is based on the assumption that the recent changes in travel patterns are likely to be temporary in nature, and so pre-COVID passenger data is likely to be a more robust basis for appraising the typical costs and benefits of the services, although I have included a section asking respondents whether they expect to make long-lasting changes to their use of bus services, to test this assumption.

I am also looking to conduct online interviews with bus users, to discuss some of the impacts in greater depth. If you have any contacts who would be interested in taking part in an interview, can you please ask them to send an email to my university email address (cgbb1e18@soton.ac.uk), so we can arrange a time and date. I have attached an information sheet for interview participants, which gives greater detail on the purpose of the research, the benefits and risks to participating, and how interview participants’ data will be used (similar information as provided at the start of the online survey).

If you would like any additional information regarding my research, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you in advance for your assistance,

Chris Burridge-Barney MPhys (Hons)