A report will be published later this month which could pave the way to more people in the North-east of Scotland to switch from their cars to buses.
While surveys have shown that the satisfaction levels of those who already use buses in Aberdeen city and shire are generally higher than those elsewhere in Scotland, the numbers boarding buses is far less than might be achieved.
Emma Smalley, Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce research team leader, said the research has been driven by findings from work carried out for North East Business Week last year on “Connectivity Driving Growth”.
It revealed how more than one out of three senior business leaders surveyed had experienced their commuting journey time increase over the preceding two years with the average commute taking 27 minutes.
“Most cited either a lack of flexibility (42%), routes not fitting their journey (41%) or timetabling issues (34%) as reasons for not using public transport,” said Emma.
“It is only by analysing these results that we can address the current congestion problems.
“Our partners for the work are Nestrans and First Group who both carry out customer satisfaction surveys for bus passengers so they will feed some of that information into us but we will not be duplicating what they do.
“This is specifically about identifying what the real and perceived barriers are to bus travel and making recommendations about how these can be removed or overcome.
“There can be many potential barriers such as price or a lack of information – people don’t know where to go to find a timetable or don’t know how to find a suitable route.
“Our research to identify these barriers, or perceived barriers, will initially involve an online survey which is being distributed to workforces across Aberdeen city and shire by a large number of company transport coordinators who are assisting.
“We will then interview several focus groups to dig deeper into what has emerged from the online survey.
“We are looking to complete our research towards the end of this month, or the beginning of April.”
Kirsty Chalmers, transport executive for Nestrans, said that their 2015 bus passenger survey would be running almost in parallel with the Chamber study to which they were contributing funding.
However she said that their 2014 survey had shown continuing high levels of satisfaction amongst bus users in both Aberdeen city and shire. They both also compared well against satisfaction levels across the country.
A spokesperson for First Group said: “Traffic congestion and local air pollution are significant issues for Aberdeen, and we believe that local bus services are part of the solution.
“By working with the Chamber, we hope to understand from businesses and commuters what their impressions of bus services are, and how they could be improved.
“Businesses in Aberdeen are faced with increasing pressure to provide parking for their employees, but this is unsustainable.
“We want to use this study to see how we can help resolve these transport issues.
“Our strategy is to encourage more customers to leave the car at home and take the bus to work and for leisure journeys.
“We’re hopeful that this study will help to dispel some of the myths about bus travel, as well as giving us useful feedback to improve our services for new and existing customers.”
