When Camille Fink was an urban planning graduate student at UCLA, she noticed that there was a large proportion of quantitative data in the research and literature she studied.
On the other hand, there was hardly any data that focused on people’s experiences.
Now, the urban planning doctoral candidate plans to remedy this problem with a year-long research project funded by the University of California Transportation Center in which she will collect travelogues from people who take photos of their public transit experiences. Fink will then analyze these photos to gain a greater understanding of travelers’ experiences and how they can be improved.
There are routine events or problems that happen every day in public transit, but a person forgets about them in between encounters, Fink added. For example, if a large number of people take pictures of the bus stops, it may point to the wait as an important part of their experience and indicate to transportation planners an area that needs attention, said Brian Taylor, professor and chair of urban planning, who is overseeing the project.
With the travelogues, transportation planners will be able to identify these issues.
About 55 people will participate in the $51,608 project by documenting a total of four door-to-door journeys, each during May and June, Fink said. This includes not only their time on the public transit vehicle itself, but also any other aspect of the travel experience.
They will take between 10 and 25 photographs and provide a caption for each one, as well as an optional longer narrative, Fink said.
“We might glean information that is useful to people who run (public transit),” Taylor said. “We are interested in how there might be public planning and policy implications.”
One participant said she is excited for the project, especially because she already goes on “transit-oriented adventures” with friends and takes photos.
The identity of participants cannot be revealed because of human subjects protocol, Fink said.
To give further dimension to the research results, the participants have to answer a series of questions about their current traveling habits before the project starts, Fink said.
“We want people who use public transit frequently and people who use it very rarely,” Fink said, adding that perceptions of an experience vary if someone chooses to ride as opposed to being forced into public transit.
Another participant said she has a car but chooses to use public transit whenever possible.
“This project has really great potential to expand on the experiences in different people’s eyes,” she said.