Travel Barriers: A Systematic Review of What Gets Asked and How?

Keywords: travel barriers, surveys, systematic review
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

Travel barriers are factors that prevent people from travelling or make it substantially difficult to travel. Travel barriers are important in transport justice research because they can lead to transport poverty, reduce activity participation and consequently lead to transport-related social exclusion. Research on travel barriers have received increasing attention in the past couple of decades and questionnaire surveys are used as a popular tool for this purpose. However, there is little understanding on the extent to which the survey question types and wordings are adequately and reliably capturing the travel barrier experiences even though questionnaire design can directly impact the reliability, validity and usability of the research when it comes to policy and planning interventions. We conducted a systematic review to examine this matter. We reviewed 124 academic articles using PRISMA statement. Our findings indicated that travel mode and safety issues related questions have been asked most frequently. In terms of questions Likert-Level of Agreement type questions have been used most frequently, followed by Multiple Response and Forced Choice questions. We also found that studies often did not explain the rationale behind choosing a certain question type over other types even though the choice can directly influence the outcomes. 15% of all travel barrier questions and 42.7% of the studies had at least one wording issue. We recommend that future studies explain the rationale of the choice of question types and pre-test the questionnaire before carrying out the actual surveys can be very helpful as well.