What Do The People Say? A Thematic Analysis of Transit Related Comments from the Dalhousie University Annual Sustainability Commuter Surveys 2012-2015

Abstract

Each year the Office of Sustainability conducts an Annual Sustainability and Transportation Survey, where between 1200-1700 staff, students, and faculty fill out the survey. Qualitative questions have been used in these surveys in attempt to gather feedback on commuting issues, and to better understand the barriers and opportunities of Dalhousie commuters as it relates to using transit and other transportation modes. This research examines the identified themes present in qualitative comments made by Dalhousie staff, faculty, and students who participated in the surveys; attempts to fill the information gap regarding these barriers and opportunities, as well aid in understanding specific themes associated with commuters, and their experiences and attitudes towards commuting. Four years (2012-2015) of survey data questions from the Annual Sustainability and Transportation Surveys will be used for this study. The qualitative research method employed for this project is inductive line-by-line coding whereby each line can have more than one code. This study documented a variety of barriers and opportunities regarding accessibility, travel time and distance, weather, risk, satisfaction, and safety. These barriers included: lack of reliability and frequency of service, weather deterrents; while opportunities included: off-site parking with bus or shuttle options to and from campus locations, increased amount of weather protection barriers for waiting commuters, and routes to outside the peninsula (directly to and from Dalhousie campuses).