Borders Railway Baseline Study - Final Report
5 Control Area Surveys
Introduction
5.1 As discussed in Chapter 2, a control area provides the means to determine whether changes which occur in the study area are a consequence of the intervention or a result of wider impacts. For this study, two control areas were selected: Dumfries & Galloway and East Lothian. Like the household survey, it is anticipated that the control area surveys will be repeated in the later evaluation, allowing the impact of the railway to be isolated and accurately assessed. Ahead of this, the following chapter provides a summary of the responses received from the control area surveys.
Response Rate
5.2 The table below provides a breakdown of responses to the control group surveys by local authority. As shown a larger number of responses were received from Dumfries & Galloway compared to East Lothian. The distribution of responses by local authority is also mapped below.
| Area | Number of Responses | Percentage of Responses |
| Dumfries & Galloway | 323 | 68.4% |
| East Lothian | 149 | 31.6% |
| TOTAL | 472 | 100% |
Figure 5.1: Geographical Distribution of Survey Responses
Respondent Characteristics
5.3 The following is key background information for respondents to the control survey in Dumfries & Galloway:
- 58% of respondents (n=275) are female and around 68% are over 55 years of age;
- Approximately 40% of respondents (n=275) own the place they live in and 25% pay rent;
- Around 47% of respondents (n=138) are retired; and
- The majority of respondents either don’t know or preferred not to disclose their income.
5.4 The following is key background information for respondents to the control survey in East Lothian:
- 63% of respondents (n=181) are female and around 66% are over 55 years of age;
- Approximately 47% of respondents (n=178) own the place they live in and 30% pay rent; and
- Around 52% of respondents (n=117) are retired;
The majority of respondents either don’t know or preferred not to disclose their income.
Dumfries & Galloway Control Survey Results
Household Composition
Household Members
5.5 In total, the 323 households surveyed in Dumfries & Galloway included 685 permanent members, 565 adults (16 or over) and 120 children / young people (<16).
5.6 The average household surveyed contained 2.1 members i.e. 1.7 adults (16 or over) and 0.4 children / young people (<16). The most common household types were the ‘two adults’ households with no children (42%) and the single person living alone households (33%).
Household Employment
5.7 The table below shows the composition of surveyed households in terms of their employment status or in other words the mean percentage of household members with a certain employment status by household size. For example, on average, a ‘three adult’ household has 48.3% of its members or 1.4 members in full time employment and a ‘two adults’ household has 50.8% of its members or 1 member retired.
| Household size (no of adults) | Full time employment | Part time employment | Full or part time further education | Full or part time higher education | Permanently sick or disabled | Not in employment/looking after home or family | Unemployed | Retired | Other |
| 1 | 20.2% | 0.9% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.8% | 0.0% | 2.8% | 73.4% | 0.9% |
| 2 | 35.9% | 5.4% | 0.6% | 0.6% | 0.8% | 2.0% | 3.4% | 50.8% | 0.6% |
| 3 | 48.3% | 11.7% | 1.7% | 1.7% | 5.0% | 1.7% | 6.7% | 23.3% | 0.0% |
| 4 | 45.0% | 5.0% | 5.0% | 20.0% | 0.0% | 10.0% | 10.0% | 5.0% | 0.0% |
| 5 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Car Ownership and Dependency
5.8 The household survey also collected information on car ownership and car dependency. It found that the average number of cars per household was 1.2 and approximately 23% (n=323) of surveyed households did not have access to a car or van while almost 8% owned or had more than two cars available.
5.9 Furthermore, there was a high level of car dependency amongst surveyed households, with approximately 47% (n=323) of respondents indicating a car is essential for their everyday needs and 16% of respondents indicating that 2 or more cars are essential for their everyday needs.
About Your Neighbourhood
5.10 A significantly high proportion of respondents (n=322) rated their neighbourhood (defined as the street they live in and the streets nearby (urban) or the local area (rural)) as very good or fairly good as shown in the figure below.
5.11 The feeling of belonging to the neighbourhood was also found to be fairly strong amongst respondents, with 45.7% stating they felt ‘very strongly’ that they belonged to their neighbourhood and 28.6% felt ‘fairly strongly’.
Figure 5.2: Quality of Neighbourhood as a Place to Live (Control Survey Dumfries & Galloway)
Your Household and Current Public Transport
5.12 The figure below shows the respondents’ level of satisfaction with the current public transport services in their area with respect to their household’s travel needs. Approximately 46% of respondents (n=320) were either very satisfied or satisfied while 17.8% were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. Overall, the top three factors which influence the level of satisfaction were ‘frequency’ (69% of respondents), ‘availability of public transport services’ (66%) and ‘reliability’ (38%), based on responses from 197 respondents. When differentiating between the satisfied and dissatisfied groups of respondents, these factors appear to be the three most important for both groups.
Figure 5.3: Satisfaction with Current Public Transport Services (Control Survey Dumfries & Galloway)
5.13 The survey also found that approximately 46% of surveyed households (n=318) would be more likely to use public transport in their area if the services improved. The main improvements that would make them use public transport more were mainly related to overall journey time and frequency. For this question, a number of respondents selected the ‘Other’ option with the recurrent themes being bus timetables, access for disabled people, quality of buses and bus stations and integration of public transport.
| Improvement | Responses | % (of responses) | % (of respondents) |
| Overall journey time | 79 | 25.2% | 55.6% |
| Frequency | 77 | 24.6% | 54.2% |
| Other | 53 | 16.9% | 37.3% |
| Reliability | 36 | 11.5% | 25.4% |
| Fares | 29 | 9.3% | 20.4% |
| Length of operating day | 21 | 6.7% | 14.8% |
| Availability of PT services | 18 | 5.8% | 12.7% |
Your Personal Travel
Commuting to Work or Education
5.14 This section of the questionnaire was concerned with the personal journeys participants make commuting to and from work or education. From a total of 318 respondents, 18.9% regularly commute to work, mainly to Dumfries (49.2%) and Castle Douglas (11.9%). The percentage of respondents (n=318) that regularly commute to further / higher education is 1.9 and the most common destination for education is Dumfries (33.3%).
5.15 The figure below shows the mode share for respondents commuting to work. As shown the majority rely on the car to get to work either as a driver (83.3%) or a passenger (1.7%); 5.1% travel to work by bus and 3.4% use active travel modes such as walking and cycling. The percentage of those relying on the car to commute to further / higher education is smaller at 33.3% while the percentage that use the bus is considerably higher at 16.7%.
Figure 5.4: Mode share for travel to work (Control survey Dumfries & Galloway)
5.16 The figure below shows the number of return trips from home to work or education per typical working week. Overall, 69% of people travelling to work and 67% of people travelling to school or university made between 4 and 5 return trips in a typical working week. On average, respondents commuting to work made 4.3 return trips and respondents commuting to education made 3.5 return trips in a typical working week.
Figure 5.5: Percentage of Return Trips to Work or Education in a Typical Working Week (Control survey Dumfries & Galloway)
Other Purpose Travel
5.17 The figure below shows the number of return trips made for all other purposes to Dumfries, Stranraer and Glasgow in a typical month:
- 66% of respondents (n=317) make between 0 and 4 return trips per month for shopping purposes;
- 67% of respondents make between 0 and 2 return trips per month for leisure purposes (cinema/theatre/eating out/nights out) or sport (participation and spectating);
- 85% of respondents make less than 1 return trip per month for business purposes; and
- 62% of respondents make 1 or less than 1 trip per month for visiting friends and family.
Figure 5.6: Percentage of Return Journeys by Travel Purpose in a Typical Month (Control survey Dumfries & Galloway)
5.18 It is easily observable from the figure below that the car is the dominant mode of travel for other purposes as well, in particular for business travel. The share of people using the bus is about the same for all purposes except business travel for which the percentage is more than two times lower. Unsurprisingly, the highest percentage of people cycling is for leisure and sport purposes.
Figure 5.7: Mode share for all other purposes (Control survey Dumfries & Galloway)
East Lothian Control Survey Results
Household Composition
Household Members
5.19 There were 149 responses from East Lothian for the control survey, covering 327 household members in total, 277 adults (16 or over) and 50 children / young people (<16). The average size of surveyed households is 2.2 members i.e. 1.9 adults and 0.3 children / young people. The most common household types were the ‘two adults’ households with no children (42%) and the single person living alone households (30%).
Household Employment
5.20 The survey collected information about the employment status of all members of surveyed households. Of the total 277 adults that are members of the households surveyed, 46% are in employment (full time and part time), 46% are retired and the rest are either in education or unemployed.
5.21 The table below shows the composition of surveyed households in terms of their employment status or in other words the mean percentage of household members with a certain employment status by household size. For example, on average, a ‘three adult’ household has 50% of its members or 1.5 members in full time employment and a ‘two adults’ household has 46% of its members or just about 1 member retired.
| HH size (no of adults) | Full time employment | Part time employment | Full or part time further education | Full or part time higher education | Permanently sick or disabled | Not in employment/looking after home or family | Unemployed | Retired | Other |
| 1 | 19.1% | 6.4% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 2.1% | 72.3% | 0.0% |
| 2 | 38.9% | 4.9% | 0.6% | 0.0% | 2.5% | 3.7% | 1.9% | 46.3% | 1.2% |
| 3 | 50.0% | 2.8% | 0.0% | 2.8% | 0.0% | 2.8% | 2.8% | 36.1% | 2.8% |
| 4 | 55.0% | 15.0% | 0.0% | 5.0% | 0.0% | 5.0% | 0.0% | 20.0% | 0.0% |
Car Ownership and Dependency
5.22 The household survey also collected information on car ownership and car dependency. It found that approximately 28% (n=149) of surveyed households do not have access to a car or van while approximately 42% own or have one car or van available. 27% own or have two cars available. Furthermore, there is a high level of car dependency amongst surveyed households i.e. approximately 36% (n=149) of respondents indicated a car is essential for their everyday needs and 17% of respondents indicated 2 or more cars are essential for their everyday needs.
About your Neighbourhood
5.23 A considerably high share of respondents (n=149) rated their neighbourhood (defined as the street they live in and the streets nearby (urban) or the local area (rural)) as very good or fairly good as shown in the figure below. The feeling of belonging to the neighbourhood was also found to be fairly strong amongst respondents as 63.8% felt ‘very strongly’ about it and 16.1% felt ‘fairly strongly’.
Figure 5.8: Quality of neighbourhood as a place to live (Control survey East Lothian)
Your Household and Current Public Transport
5.24 The figure below shows the respondents’ level of satisfaction with the current public transport services in their area with respect to their household’s travel needs. Approximately 51% of respondents (n=149) are either very satisfied or satisfied while 22% are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.
5.25 Overall, the two most important factors which influence the level of satisfaction are ‘frequency’ and ‘availability of public transport services’, as indicated by 78% and 60% respectively of 101 respondents. When differentiating between the satisfied and dissatisfied groups of respondents, these two factors appear to be the most important reasons for both satisfaction and dissatisfaction with public transport services.
Figure 5.9: Satisfaction with current public transport services (Control survey East Lothian)
5.26 The survey also found that 56% of surveyed households (n=149) would be more likely to use public transport in their area if the services were improved. The main improvements that would make them use it more are mainly related to availability of PT and frequency. For this question, the ‘Other’ option was chosen by quite a few respondents and the most frequent answers were: no improvements would make me use public transport more (35%), more direct routes and better connectivity to Edinburgh (19%).
| Improvement | Responses | % (of responses) | % (of respondents) |
| Availability of PT services | 34 | 23% | 41% |
| Frequency | 31 | 21% | 38% |
| Fares | 15 | 10% | 18% |
| Length of operating day | 12 | 8% | 15% |
| Overall journey time | 9 | 6% | 11% |
| Reliability | 9 | 6% | 11% |
| Other | 37 | 25% | 45% |
Your Personal Travel
Commuting to Work or Education
5.27 This section of the questionnaire was concerned with the personal journeys participants make commuting to and from work or education. From a total of 149 respondents, 27% regularly commute to work, mainly to Edinburgh City Centre (52.5%) and Dunbar (12.5%). The share of respondents (n=148) that regularly commute to further / higher education is much smaller at 2% and the most common destination for education is Edinburgh City Centre.
5.28 The survey found that on average, respondents commuting to work make approximately 4.4 return trips and for 12.5% of them the return journey typically involves walking or cycling for more than 30 minutes.
5.29 The figure below shows the mode share for respondents commuting to work i.e. the majority rely on the car to get to work either as a driver or a passenger and only 5% travel to work by bus. However, the percentage of respondents that use active travel modes for commuting such as walking and cycling is quite high at 13%.
Figure 5.10: Mode share for travel to work (Control survey East Lothian)
For all other purposes
5.30 The figure below shows the number of return trips made for all other purposes to Edinburgh in a typical month:
- 23% of respondents (n=147) do not make any shopping trips while 24% make 4 return trips per month for shopping purposes;
- 65% of respondents make between 0 and 2 return trips per month for leisure purposes (cinema/theatre/eating out/nights out) or sport (participation and spectating);
- The majority of respondents do not make any return trips for business purposes;
- 72% of respondents make 3 or less than 3 trips per month for visiting friends and family.
Figure 5.11: Percentage of return journeys by travel purpose in a typical month (Control survey East Lothian)
5.31 As can be easily observed from the figure below, the car is the dominant mode of travel for all other purposes as well. A considerably high percentage of people are using the bus across all travel purposes and less than 1% cycle.
Figure 5.12: Mode share for all other purposes (Control survey East Lothian)