The impact of regional railways on travel behaviour and social capital

Abstract

This paper focuses on the impacts of regional railways on travel behaviour and social capital, and describes quantitative analyses based on our survey research of residents in communities along two regional railways in Austria. The service levels of these two railways have greatly improved in recent years, and this leads to the results that around 50 to 60 percent of respondents reported “changes” in travel behaviour and 30 percent in relationships with others respectively for both railway lines. These numbers are similar to prior research carried out in Japan. Furthermore, according to analyses using logistic regression models, although the results vary between the two railways, it is notable that non-workers like pensioners significantly gave positive replies to “changes” in relationships with others for all the cases. These indicate that the improvement of regional railways has a positive impact on their travel behaviours and the social capital of residents along their lines, and could possibly reduce the risk of social exclusion of non-workers in regional areas.