The social geography of commuting: A typology of Danish commuters – 500.000 Dkr (external funds)

The purpose of this research project is to develop a typology of commuters that incorporate personal values and opinions, in other words, to develop a unique mapping of the social geography of commuters.

Commuting research in Denmark have so far, like commuting research in other countries, been written into the quantitative model tradition that exist in transport research, or into the econometric model tradition that exists within labour market and housing market research. Thus, in Denmark as well as abroad, numerous studies have been made, that illustrate how socioeconomic variables influence commuting, for example how education, income, ownership of the car, number of people in the household, distance to work, etc., influence the choice of transport mode and route.

In recent years, a more qualitative mobility research tradition has gained momentum, which focus on the importance of values, opinions and rationales behind mobility.

This research project is the first in Denmark to uncover how attitudes and values affect commuting, and develop a typology of Danish commuters and map these geographically. This knowledge will be crucial for politicians and planners in the future, because as an extreme example can be argued it is irrational plan to expand public transport in a rural area, if the people living in the area have opinions and values which means that their dream is to have one or two cars per household and drive to work because of the sense of freedom this offers.

It may seem paradoxical that despite the many commuting studies to date, none have been made that studies how opinions and values influence commuting and a typology of commuters developed from this. This is rooted in the questions asked in the Danish travel surveys (TU), as well as in travel surveys in other European countries. The Danish travel surveys (TU) includes multiple socio-economic variables, like most other European Travel surveys (Armoogum, et. Al. 2014), but no opinion-related questions or value-related questions. Previous models have therefore not included value-related or opinion-related variables.

Therefore in this research project a quantitative web survey of a statistically representative sample of the Danish population over 18 years old will be made, which will include in both socio-economic variables and opinion and value related variables. On the basis of this survey a typology of commuters will be developed.