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ABSTRACT
This paper provides a unique insight into aspects of stability and change regarding the travel time use of rail passengers in Great Britain between 2004 and 2010. Empirical evidence is presented on how rail passengers spend their time, how worthwhile they consider their time use to be, the extent of advance planning of their time use and how equipped for time use they are in terms of the items they have to hand when they travel. The results reveal a consistent dominance of reading for leisure, window gazing/people watching and working/studying as favoured travel time activities. Over the six-year period, the availability and use of mobile technologies has increased. Listening to music in particular has doubled in its incidence suggesting an increasing capacity for travellers to personalise the public space of the railway carriage. Most notably the analysis reveals a substantial increase in the proportion of travellers overall making very worthwhile use of their time.
Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to Passenger Focus for the opportunity to include questions on travel time use in the NPS and extend our thanks in particular to David Greeno and Ian Wright for their support. The University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE) is acknowledged for providing the time resources to enable this research to be pursued. We finally extend our thanks to the four anonymous reviewers of the initial version of this paper for the constructive feedback which has helped develop and shape this final version.