Giving Up Driving to

Take the Bus

Research Tools Research Project #1

Amanda Bainbridge

June 2, 2008

Sum

mary of C

hatter

First, I wanted to see what people were saying casually about the bus – what made them mention it?

I suspected that there might be a correlation between bus riding and the rising gas prices, so I searched each one individually in blogscope.net, and compared them on a graph. Although “ride the bus” was mentioned far less often than “gas prices,” the two had blog spikes around the same time.

When I looked at some of the blogs that mentioned both of my search factors, there definitely seemed to be a connection – over 200 blogs mentioned both “gas prices” and “ride the bus.”

So I began my screener with questions geared toward finding regular bus riders who had started riding the bus within the past year.

I wanted to talk to people who were riding the bus in order to take a stand about something – not just riders who were there because they had to be or because they had no other options.

Therefore, if I was talking to someone who had given up owning a car completely, I wanted it to be a recent decision, tied to their bigger choice to ride the bus.

I was particularly interested in those riding because they didn’t want to continue paying high gas prices, and those who were riding to improve our environment.

I wanted to talk to those people for whom riding the bus had been a big decision or a big sacrifice – those who had to convince themselves in some way that giving up driving for riding would be worth it in the long run.

In terms of demographics, I suspected that my target was between 21 and 40 years old, and either employed or a full time student, which was their primary need for regular transportation beyond walking distance.

Focus Group Discussion Guide

I. Warm Up/ Introduction 10 minutes

II. Riding the Bus – the basics 15 minutes

a. How long have you been using the public bus system?

b. What is your favorite thing about using the bus system?

e. Is there anything you don’t like about riding the bus?

c. Do you still own a car? Why/why not?

III. Making the Switch 25 minutes

a. How would you describe your morning or evening ride?

b. How is that different from mornings/evenings when you drove?

c. Tell me about the first time you chose to ride the bus instead of drive – what was that like?

d. What was the most important factor for you in choosing the bus?

e. Is there anything that would make you go back to using your car instead?

In the focus group with the people we had screened for, I wanted to hear specifically about what drove them to make a big change in their transportation habits – giving up driving their (easy, fast) car for the (confusing, slow) bus.

IV. Current advertising 15 minutes

a. These are ads and websites for buses you ride every day. What are they each saying?

b. What are some common themes you see in these ads? Does anything tie them together?

c. What do you like about these ads? What don’t you like?

V. New Campaign Advertising for Metro Transit 25 minutes

a. What do these new ads say about Metro Transit?

b. What kind of a bus company is this?

c. How is this different from the other ads we looked at? Does it feel different?

d. Do you feel strongly about riding the bus?

e. Is that a different feeling than you used to have about driving your car? Or is it the same?

f. Pretend you have never heard of Metro Transit before. What is your perception of Metro Transit after seeing these new ads?

I wanted to know what they thought of ads that were targeted at them and others like them. Did those ads hit home? Were they disliked? Or did they go unnoticed?

After taking an interest in the trendiness of riding the bus, I became curious about what was causing people to ride – and to mention it suddenly in their blogs, as blogscope.net showed me they had been doing only since April.

The huge amount of “ride the bus” blog growth around the same time as huge gas price increases were taking place caused me to suspect that the two were sensibly tied. That suspicion seemed to be confirmed by a similarly timed spike in “gas prices” blogs, and by the number of blogs that discussed both gas prices and riding the bus. Even some twitters directly mentioned their recent switch to bus riding, and the gas prices that had caused that switch.

Summary

However, many who were making the switch seemed to recognize it as a difficult one at first – a sacrifice they were forced to make because the benefits were finally beginning to outweigh the costs. These were the people I wanted to talk to, feeling that they best represented the target almost-bus-rider: reluctant but just about ready to bite the bullet and make the change.

Since I had reached the people I wanted to talk to, I felt it was important to ask them more about what had finally instigated the change, and to ask them what, if anything, they thought of present advertising aimed at riders just like them. If I could get them to speak just a little more about what had finally been enough to convince them to give up on their convenient cars for the less convenient bus, I felt I would have a better idea of the bigger picture when it came to our target – others who were extremely close to making the sacrifice and getting on the bus.