IBISINNO : February 2014

Ibisinno project: “People accustomed of driving cars do not try riding a bus”

Project plan: After the introduction the group decided to have a coffee/planning meeting in the cafeteria. Through our brainstorming session we came up with the idea to do an online survey where we would try to figure out why people choose to drive their own car rather than taking the bus. This survey will be open for one week.

For increasing the visibility of our group’s work, we also decided to make our own Twitter account. Using Twitter, our Facebook, and other connections we can send out the survey link to all our friends and other contacts.

Now all we had to do was to go outside, get in touch with people in Turku and ask what they had to say on the topic. Due to the free bus cards we decided to use them and check out what the bus experience really is like in Turku. The group thought that our busses were fine, maybe a bit smelly, but fine.

Our first interview was at Turun Joukkoliikenne office with an office worker. She commented how most people buy the monthly ticket. In addition, she discussed how most people switch to the bus service due to it being cheaper than driving. Owning a car plus the parking can be very expensive. She also mentioned the employer ticket program that a lot of companies use. The program is about 3 years old provides company’s employees discounted tickets.

After our interview with the nice ticket lady we decided to divide our group into two. The idea was to go to the Hansa shopping center and ask around about peoples preferences between using cars and buses. The easiest way to get in touch with people going by car was to interview people coming and going from the Q-park, while the other group walked around Hansa interviewing everyone there.

Hansa group:
First we went to Zara and asked a young girl (age 26-28) how she gets to work. Her answer was that she usually walks. She does have a car but it is too expensive to park. She does on some occasions use the bus.
She said that the buses inside Turku work quite well, but she also uses the 50/50 (double combination card) card, which she thought was very clever.
The next women was from Stockman (age 28) and she takes the bus every day! She does have a car but she only uses it when she goes outside Turku. She thought that the buses in Turku work extremely well. She did not come up with any improvement ideas and did not even comment on the price.
Still in Stockman, the group met a woman, age 45, with two youngsters. She said that the bus is no option for her, as it is 5 km to the bus top and with two children it just does not work. She lives in Paimio.
The last women that the group spoke to was 55 years old and from Turku. She has lived in Turku for 30 years and she said that the bus service has improved a lot! She loves the bus service, but she did say that it depends on where you live. Her daughter lives in Kukola, which is not a good bus service area. It is a terrible coverage and the buses do not go that often. Her daughter usually uses her car instead.
Last but not least, the group went to the INFO desk in Hansa. There were two workers but they were not cooperative at all. They did not want to answer any questions and told the group to stop harassing customers and actually get out of the shopping center. The 55 year old Stockman worker did mention that almost every one of her colleagues that live outside Turku come to Turku by car.

Q-Park group:
The first people that we met were an elderly couple. They were happy to answer our questions. Both of them came by car, but do use the bus. Both had a senior discount card. They live in Pikisaaristo. They like to use the bus but there are some problems. Sometimes the bus is late, and it only comes once an hour. If they go out to dinner and have some wine in Turku they usually have to hurry to the last bus that already leaves at 11:30pm. They wish the buses to and from Naantali would get better.

The next person did not have time for us. But he gave us a smile!
The next person was a mother with her 3 children. She does not use the bus due to it being very inconvenient for her family and her daily routines (which sometimes may include up to 3 stops in the morning, meaning too many different buses and too much time spent).
We also met a 45 year old woman who only uses the car. This is due to where she lives as the bus stop is too far away from her home. She does not live in Turku.
The last person was a woman from Kaarina. She had to take the car to save time due to so many errands in different locations in the morning.

In summary, people who used the bus a lot, were in general quite satisfied with the service. Few of them suggested improving the route coverage and more frequent schedules. For the people driving, most of them indicated it as a matter of practicality. Either they had to stop in multiple places, had children or it was simply faster to use the car. As for our next steps, we will be sharing our online survey and collecting more data so that we have more responses.