Questionnaire: Transport

Authors: Kéra NYEMB and Laura PICAUD

Over the last 30 years, the sharp increase of the number of outings and lengthening distances have turned carriages into the most popular means of transport.
Today, the latter accounts are more than 60% of urban journeying, while 27% goes to walking, 9% to public transport and 2% equally to biking and motorized two-wheelers.
According to ADEME (2007), one out of two trips by carriage is for a distance shorter than 3km. However, according to a joint Macif/Opinion Way study, 57% of French people declare to be in favor of an alternative to regular reliance on their individual automobile.

In this study, we tried to ascertain that this newfound enthusiasm for sustainable mobility stems from heartfelt awareness of the impact of Mankind on the environment.

In order to achieve this goal, we relied on data from a questionnaire concerning 112 individuals. The poll not only probed people's journeying ways and means as well as their perception of these different ways of journeying but also their consuming habits and ecological convictions.

The data were analyzed using MCA and HAC. 19% of our data's variability is expressed by the first plan.

  • Axis 1 highlights the use of alternatives to carriages. That is to say individuals linked to positive figures on this axis might tend to use alternative means of transport because they do not have the choice (they cannot drive or afford a car)
  • Axis 2 depicts individuals using means of transport in keeping with their philosophical creeds. On the positive side are to be found people who try to act ecological, on the negative side those who do not feel concerned with ecology and are rather money-minded

Three profiles of individuals emerge:

  • first students who never drive (they do not have a car nor driving license) and exclusively rely on public transport
  • second individuals who are not in the habit of using public transport
  • third the 5 people who did not accept to answer the questions

Eventually, we are led to the conclusion that concerning some people, there is a direct relationship between ecological convictions and using alternative means of transport (whether by choice or necessity). It also emerges the picture of people who think they share strong ecological beliefs but are not prepared to give up on driving. Finally, the last group rather seems not to be coming to terms with their aspirations to luxury in thinking they have chosen alternative means of transport.

One may wonder what is paramount in the choice of a mean of transport. Is it convictions which are going to be inductive of a choice or social condition which is going to be inductive of convictions?

Find here the data set and the R script:

The results of the ENMCA() function are the following:

Beware the results of HCPC() and ENMCA() are not quite the same since the data are ventilated and the method of classification is a bit different.