Emotional response to our daily commute — a research project
London is an interesting place, especially with the transportation system. It could be effective yet exhausting at the same time.
One day, shortly after a panic attack following my tube ride, I increasingly paid attention to the relationship between my daily commute and cognitive response.
I began to write the essay Public Transportation and Well-being in London where I investigated the effect of transition time during our commute and the idea of positive commute.
During my research, I came across Roger Mackett, a professor at the Centre for Transport Studies at University College London. In 2019, he launched the Mental Health and Travel Report at UCL. He surveyed adults in England with mental health conditions or mental illness and investigated the relationship between mental health and travel. In the end of the report, he raised 39 recommendations for the government and travel providers. I later had an interview with Professor Mackett in the hope of finding more information.
During our interview, he said that although there is more research looking into how commuting on public transport affects mental disabilities (in terms of infrastructural designs), there is no comprehensive research about how commuting on public transport would affect city dwellers’ mental health specifically.
Learning about the limited information we have at the moment, I went on to start a travel diary and street interview to get more data about how commuting on public transport affects myself and others.
Travel Diary
The travel diary lasted for three weeks in May 2019. I documented my emotions and observations whenever I commute on public transport. I would draw (see header image) when I have paper, pen and seats available and take photos with my mobile phone otherwise.
Referencing “Two Selves theory” (a theory by Daniel Kahneman and Jason Riis about the mismatch of emotion between experiencing self and remembered self), I documented my emotions again five days after the commute.
Here are the findings:
1. Emotion
Five days after the commute. I forgot the exact feeling of the journey but I’d say that I’m calm. One significant finding is experiencing a break up in the middle of conducting the travel diary. First day after my break up (27th May), I wanted to take the bus, cross the river Thames, it was somehow healing.
From that experience, I highly relate to Glenn Lyons and Kiron Chatterjee’s notes on “time out” and “transaction time”. The break up and sitting in the front of a double decker bus provided me with an atmosphere of solitariness to prepare myself for the transition of place and mentality.
2. Time
Morning commute is more stressful but at night I’m usually in a good mood because I’m going home.
The 30 minutes mark applied to me. On 23rd May, “I wanted to leave” as the journey reached 30 minutes (Aldgate East to Westminster/Victoria).
However, the feeling of time can vary depending on the situation. If I have a companion with me, for instance, classmates or friends, time will pass by faster. The same effect with mobile games or reading. Again, this demonstrates the point of “equipped time” raised by Glenn Lyons and Kiron Chatterjee.
3. Weather
The temperature and intensity of sunlight did affect my mood. The heat made me anxious and annoyed (15th, 16th, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 31st May). On the other side, sunlight tends to make me happy and calm (15th, 21st May).
Street Interview
After learning about the basics of societal engagement research in the societal engagement workshop with Dr Helal Ahmed, teaching fellow at Imperial College, I partnered with Catalina Pino, a PhD candidate in Electrochemical Science and Engineering. We developed a research method trying to understand London commuter’s commuting emotions. We conducted the street interview on Exhibition Road. Although the sample size is small, it provides an insight into London commuter’s idiosyncrasies.
To attract the pedestrians’ attention, we firstly approach pedestrians with the big hand-drawn Oyster cards and ask them where they want to travel if you are given a free oyster card. Then briefly ask why. Moving on, we question the choice of daily commute and the reason behind choosing the mode of transportation. Following the answer, we ask them to describe the journey by choosing a coloured balloon. The colour of the balloon represented the emotion of the journey — red means angry and antagonised, blue means calm, pink means happy, orange means excited, green means neutral. Lastly, the respondent is asked to recall any significant memories of their journeys and what they usually do during their journey.
According to the data collected from the 6 respondents, 3 described their daily commute as “calm”, 1 described it as “angry”, 1 described it as “annoyed” and 1 described it as “neutral”. All respondents take the London Underground during their daily commute.
Looking at the rationale behind the findings, we can see most respondents (respondents 1, 2, 5 and 6) explained their emotions to be affected by how busy their commute is. When the tube is busy, they would register negative emotions, such as annoyance; when the tube is not busy, they would register neutral or positive emotions, such as “calm”. It shows that the commuting time (rush and non-rush hour) could affect commuter’s emotions. As for the activities that the respondents have conducted during their journey, they replied with “zoning out”, “listening to music” and “listening to podcasts”.
Result
From my limited data sample, I found that a few factors would affect our emotions, such as time and weather. More importantly, when we commute during non-peak hours, our commuting has the potential to be calming. It shows more support in experiencing a “positive commute”.
A 2021 note during lockdown 3 in the UK*
It’s been quite a year. A pandemic just completely changed the idea and our perception towards commuting. It would be interesting to see how things unfold or when we are able to travel freely again.
