Safe Speed Forums

Little byline in the (paper copy of the) Sunday Telegraph this am. Some academic at Sussex Uni with a background in green transport is going to publish a paper today/tomorrow showing that commuting by bus is 'less stressful' than by car.

I know which I'd rather do. Even if the other was possible for me.

Maybe the academic only considered people below 5'6" who could actually fit in the seats.

And people who like the impish scallywags that go to school on public buses.

etc.



Actually one of the only stressful things on my commute is getting stuck behind the bus!

I think the study only considererd OAP's with both free bus passes and the time to spend an hour and a half to do a 10 minuite journey!

(Seriously, you can travel all over the country of a free bus pass and if you like that sort of thing it is great way to go on an extended touring holiday with only B&B and the odd meal out to consider, cheaper thans staying at home almost!. I know people who do it)

But back in the real world......

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

Study funded by bus companies says travelling by bus better than travelling by car This of course assumes a bus goes anywhere near where you want to go at a sensible time and doesn't take 5 times as long.

Two words come to mind; 'clutching' and 'straws'.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Of course buses are less stressful than cars. The passengers don't drive them BUS DRIVER
If I want to access the public transport vehicle [bus] first have to walk 3/4 mile to the nearest PTV stop. It is usually raining when you "catch the bus" (I like the analogy...as if a rod-and-line would work). At the end of the journey there is another [inevitable] long walk to get anywhere.....at the end of the day (which arrives very fast while waiting for public transport) (but not fast enough if waiting for the train at weekend) it is easier to use car/m/bike/cycle/legs/snail. And you're doing your bit for the carbon thing....
Bus passes are nice, but not all operators accept them (and it is embarrassing to be turned down)
It is instructional to look at the train timetables since the "travel concession" also applies to local train travel in many places.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Perhaps they only surveyed people on buses

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Is that as in Green Transport ,as( green) in the needs/wishes of the travelling public .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

It sounds as if you have all discredited his paper without reading it. As in: "I know what is true. Please don't confuse my mind with facts".

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Hey, my comment had a smiley.

I don't doubt many find it is less stressful by bus: most of the decision making is out of passenger's hands (fixed routes, fixed times).
No need to worry about MOT, tax, insurance, petrol and maintenance (unless you have a company car). Then there is the battle for the ever reducing, or more expensive, parking spaces
Of course, buses have unfair advantages, like bus lanes, and sometimes preference at traffic lights, and they usually block other traffic when taking/dropping passengers at their own 'parking' spots. If the playing field were levelled, things might be a bit different.

No need to worry about cameras in needlessly low limits too

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Doesn't the paper start from the premise that public transport is in some way "better" than private cars - so its author made up his mind before he started.

The actual Telegraph report is here.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Notice he only used commuters in his study. What about the offpeak and weekend groups?

Did he conduct his survey when buses were running late or cancelled, or when the weather was inclement?

Can one expect a heart rate to be greater when operating pedals, gearsticks and steering wheels, compared to just sitting there?

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

according to new research which will be published tomorrow You are all prejudging, from your prejudice, a paper which has not been published.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I take umbrage with this.
I was merely questioning obvious confounding factors, based on information from the article.
I've also stated factors in support of the report.

So much for my trying to be even handed

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Personally, I'd ask just one pertinent question -has the green person got any bus travelling credentials ,or is it all a virtual bus journey . ( Like a lot of other academics) .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

A few years back I took the wife to London from Wakefield on the National Express.
Set off at 9 and arrived at victoria about 2ish.

Never ever again would i use that service !
Very little seat room, very little leg room, It was impossible to get comfy and we didn't stop for a break.
Oh boy did i hate the thought of a return journey
I can't remember the price but it was cheap.

My brother occasionally comes up from London using advanced train tickets that cost less than the bus

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nigel_bytes

The last time I bothered with a bus was approx 18 years ago.

At the time I was commuting 12 miles across South London.

By car 35 mins
By Bicycle 45 mins

Car died and some scroats nicked my bicycles so:

By train/bus (via central London) theoretical 90 mins best achieved time 135 mins
By Bus theoretical 80 mins (I think) best achieved time 150 mins. (The first of the 2 buses was hopelessly unreliable - my shortest wait was 45 mins for a 3 an hour service)
On foot 105 mins!!

Admittedly I lived approx 1 mile from a railway station and 1/2 mile from a bus route and worked 2 mile from a railway station and 1/2 mile from the bus route. However this is across the outskirts of the UK capital - how can it be much quicker (without practice although pretty fit) on foot to cover 12 miles than to use public transport?

From anecdotal evidence things haven't improved much. Recently my local bus service came a close second to the worst in the land. Apparently a local bus into the town runs once a day but the return takes a different route which involves a 1 mile walk and crosses a ford which for quite a while had a broken foot bridge (you had to paddle!).

Thanks for posting that Peter.

Love the impartial description of the report's aim:


I wonder why this report may be scientifically true while running counter to what a lot of people observe?

1. Environment that the test is conducted in. I imagine the least car-friendly commute (A23 into Brighton perhaps?) was chosen.

2. Technically the definition of 'stress' may be misleading to the casual reader. The report measured heart rate and electrodermal stress. As far as I can understand, this would not differentiate between stress and excitement. I would presumably get quite a high "stress" reading when out in my car for a Sunday morning hoon, but I would not describe myself as stressed.

So maybe for a narrow set of godawful urban commutes, driving may elicit a stress response. Fine.

But being on a bus can induce boredom, despair at the inability to influence your circumstances, and if (like me) you're a bit of a snob that can't abide gobby teenagers, distaste as well .

Equally, if I have a clear run home, I can leave work in a wretched mood if I've had a bad day but end up at home with a higher heart rate - and much happier!

One last thought, would the report's author try measuring 'heart rate and electrodermal stress' of cyclists and bus passengers and come to the same conclusion? Presumably physical exertion produces the same response, so cyclists must be very 'stressed'.

Steve - when it comes to climate research you will accept no conclusion unless you have access to the raw data so I am disappointed that the newspaper report of an unpublished piece of research is sufficient to elicit a response from you.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Don't you think that it would be more in keeping with the scientific rigour so admired by the users of these forums to wait for the actual paper rather than basing your response on an imaginary situation?

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

So what "conclusion" did I accept or reject in this case? Or was my response actually nothing of the sort?

Is pointing out potential factors, in an even handed manner, really in the same league as rejecting policy influencing conclusions due to: the lack of raw data, and conflicts of interest, and other critically confounding factors (world was no hotter with much more CO2) ?
Really?

Who is pre-judging?

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign