Shopping Choices with Public Transport Options

Book excerpt: In recent years, the environmental, social and economic concerns regarding laissez-faire retail decentralization policies have resulted in an emergence of a global trend towards the provision of wider choices of good quality public transport modes in suburban areas. Existing research on transport choices to shopping areas simply looks at travel time, travel cost or distance as a measure of the 'deterrence' of getting to a retail outlet and has concentrated on the attributes of the retail outlets, thus neglecting the transport attributes. Based on a substantial study incorporating both quantitative and qualitative research, this engaging volume takes a more balanced view of both retail outlet and transport attributes. It employs a multi-method, sequential design to examine the many dimensions salient to how people evaluate transport options for shopping purposes and unravels many important issues in transport mode and retail destination choices.