Disaster and unplanned disruption: Personal travel planning and workplace relocation in Christchurch, New Zealand

Abstract

Christchurch, New Zealand, is a city dominated by car use. In the 2013 Census 84% of people travelled to work by car. In 2010 and 2011, a series of earthquakes resulted in widespread damage to horizontal infrastructure, and the relocation of many homes and businesses. Over 70 percent of buildings in the central business district were destroyed or deconstructed and many organisations, including government departments and private commercial enterprises, relocated to suburban areas.The relocation of businesses back to the central city in 2017 presented opportunities to rethink the travel network to and from the city, and to promote alternatives to private motor vehicle use such as public transport, car-pooling, walking and cycling. The Greater Christchurch Partnership undertook personal travel planning with some of these organisations to help facilitate the goals of the new transport plan. This action was based on the habitat discontinuity hypothesis that context change or disruption increases the likelihood that a behaviour will be reconsidered and different choices made.A personal travel planning programme was subsequently implemented. It included a pre-move survey (N = 834), individual interviews with staff (N = 1234) and a post-move survey (N = 624). Results showed that after businesses relocated to the central city, the mean number of trips per week made by walking, cycling, bussing and carpooling increased for those not interviewed (Group A) and those interviewed (Group B) and the mean number of trips by car per week decreased for both these groups.Results of the ANOVA showed the difference in mean trips per week between the group interviewed and the group not interviewed was statistically significantly higher for bussing after businesses moved. No other statistically significant differences were found between these two groups for any other mode.It is concluded that one-to-one interviews targeting workers about to relocate were effective in relation to bussing, but were not effective in relation to cycling, carpooling, walking and 'other' forms of transport. This study provides a unique situation involving large scale business relocation, rather than the fragmented relocation of individual residents.