Survey of public attitudes towards transport, 2009

A new Ipsos report for the County Surveyor's Society (CSS) finds reducing the cost of public transport prioritised by the public over everything else.

This is the case in 2009 as it was in 2001, although road and pavement maintenance has caught up over the course of the decade while overall satisfaction levels with road maintenance have fallen from a mid-decade high of 52% in 2006.

Four in ten adults are now negative about road maintenance (41%). There has been an increase – now up to a third (34%) – in the proportion who think this has got worse over the past five years.

Reflecting this, this year’s survey shows that the public want to see greater priority given to this aspect of transport and highways service provision.

At the same time, spend on this and other transport and highways infrastructure and policy projects will have to compete for public funds in a challenging economic backdrop with public sector spend likely to be squeezed. Our new question for the CSS this year demonstrates that the public don’t currently give transport a priority relative to the more obvious ‘people services’.

Our time series for CSS shows a declining sense among users and the wider public that public transport has got worse.

Among the other findings from this year’s survey are:

• 85% of British adults have used a car in the last month. 
• 44% have travelled by bus and 27% by train in the last month. 
• Just over a third of bus users (34%) now say local bus services are better than they were five years ago. 
• 23% of regular train users say that local railway services have improved in the last five years compared with just 7% in 2001. 
• 45% of people regard traffic jams in their own areas as having got worse in the last five years – down from 72% six years ago. 
• Between 2006 and 2009, support for congestion charging outside London has fallen from 37% to 27%. 
• 44% now chose reducing the cost of public transport as a priority for greater investment followed by 42% for road and pavement maintenance.
• Download the press release from the County Surveyor's Society
• Download the full report including topline summary and computer tables

Technical note:

The survey involved ten questions on Ipsos’s Omnibus asked of a nationally representative quota sample of 1,945 adults aged 16+ interviewed throughout Great Britain. Interviews were carried out face-to-face in respondents’ homes between 10-16 July 2009 using CAPI (Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing). Data have been weighted to reflect the known national population profile.

CSS

The County Surveyor's Society (CSS) represents local authority chief officers who manage some of the most pressing issues facing the UK today. Membership is drawn from all four corners of the United Kingdom with members responsible for three-quarters of the road network, two thirds of the land area and just under half the population of England and Wales. Operating at the strategic tier of local government, they are closely involved in crucial transport, waste management, environment, planning, energy and economic development issues.