Travellers’ use and perception of travel time in long-distance trips in Europe

Abstract

Long-distance travel represents a small share of trips but a growing and disproportionately high share of carbon emissions. While the tourism and high-speed rail literature provides some insights characterising demand on various existing long-distance transport links, new app-based methods for collecting travel data offer the potential to analyse trips on a wider geographical scale and to uncover the factors influencing travel demand from the traveller perspective. This research presents the results of such analysis based on a multimodal dataset consisting of 733 long-distance trips in 8 European countries. It confirms that car travel still represents a high share of long-distance trips, which typically consist of fewer legs than by other modes such as the train, bus or plane. However, it also shows that long-distance car or plane travellers are less likely to evaluate trips as worthwhile than train or bus travellers. The research brings new insights in terms of the top factors affecting the quality of travel and the preferred activities by travellers while on-the-move, which provides actionable policy pathways to make more sustainable long-distance modes more attractive. The train offers promising possibilities for higher quality travel time in long-distance door-to-door trips, but more research is needed to understand better the role of transfers and first- and last-mile in the overall perceived value of travel time. The paper suggests a renewed focus on the experience of travel time in transport assessment and policy to nurture a shift towards low-carbon transport for long-distance travel.