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What mode of transportation did you choose for your last trip of 1000km (about 600 mi)?

#EvanPoll #Poll

  • Plane (46%, 181 votes)
  • Train (23%, 91 votes)
  • Car (27%, 106 votes)
  • Other (please specify) (3%, 15 votes)
393 voters. Poll end: 3 anni fa

Evan Prodromou reshared this.

in reply to Evan Prodromou

Car, and I wrote about it:
chrisalemany.ca/2022/08/15/sav…

#ElectricVehicles #RoadTrip #Canada #EVCrossCanada #Family #CarbonEmissions #CO2 #ClimateAction

in reply to Evan Prodromou

Greyhound to a suburb of Memphis although that was almost 20 years ago.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

plane, but if a fast train were available I would take it instead.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

"What is a 1980 John Hughes film that I really want to rewatch now?"
in reply to Evan Prodromou

Plane. Sadly there's not a lot of choice in New Zealand. Our interregional public transport is terrible and of course there's sea right in the middle.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

oh USA, you make it so hard to travel the west by rail. Ended up taking Route 66 west from OK to CA, then up 99 or 5 to Seattle.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

Car, if 1000km roundtrip… Luxembourg, last year. If one way, sort of, then also car: a 7000km road trip around scandinavia (NL-GER-Ferry-FIN-NOR-SWE-DEN-GER-NL. In dire need of a change of scenery again.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

600 miles is the entire length of the UK and I've never come close to that.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

Not really 1 trip but nearly 1000km in 2 days: visiting a friend at the other end of the country and going to a concert across the border in Germany. But planning some longer camping trips 😄
in reply to Evan Prodromou

OBB Night train to Berlin, then the ICE to Hamburg and a Danish regional train to Copenhagen, and finally the Swedish west coast train to Göteborg.

On the way back we took the OBB night train from Hamburg.

in reply to Evan Prodromou

I live in New Zealand, so any journey that long necessitates flying.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

in the US, car is the only economical way to travel with a family of 6.

But every time I'm on an interstate driving through a low-population area in the middle of the night, with my kids asleep in the back of the minivan, baggage piled all around, I wonder how we got to the point where anyone thinks this approach is superior to a compartment on a train.

in reply to Evan Prodromou

@Evan Prodromou car, but shared with 7-8 people (we rented a car with 9 seats, and it happened multiple years with slightly different combinations of people)
in reply to Evan Prodromou

I wouldn't really say 'chose', since that implies I had options 😅​
in reply to Evan Prodromou

out to blue ridge parkway in the us, nearest airport was far enough away that driving the whole way just made more sense
Unknown parent

Evan Prodromou
@marco so, that seems like it's way more than 1000km.
Unknown parent

Evan Prodromou
@Moira wow, what a trip!
in reply to Evan Prodromou

Train of course, it’s the best way to travel. The week before last I traveled 800km for work, stayed at destination for three nights and took the overnight train home. Good times.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

Oh this is sad. I can't remember the last time I went 600 mi. It was pre-pandemic.
Unknown parent

Evan Prodromou
@brion so, I think 1000km gets you to the Bay Area, right? I think that's a 20-hour trip on Amtrak; a pretty close equivalent to driving! But I think it leaves and arrives in the evening.
Unknown parent

Evan Prodromou

@brion yeah, I was just using this route as the example in my human-computer interface class. I'm doing a project on selecting transportation modes based on real experience like door-to-door times.

The drive time from SF to Portland is about 15 hours, iirc. While it's possible to do that if you have multiple drivers and can trade off, it's more likely that you'll need to stop for meals and sleep, so I estimated a door-to-door time of 29 hours (15 drive, 8 sleep, 6 meals).

in reply to Evan Prodromou

WOW. These results are wildly different than my poll about distances around 500km:

prodromou.pub/@evan/1098558667…

...and the one around 200km:

prodromou.pub/@evan/1097904411…

Questa voce è stata modificata (3 anni fa)
in reply to Evan Prodromou

I think there are two reasons for this.

First, there's a threshold between 500km and 1000km where train travel becomes significantly uncompetitive on time compared to air travel; 2x or 3x the door-to-door time commitment.

in reply to Evan Prodromou

I'd also guess thst traveling more than 1000 km happens a lot less often (in Europe) than 200 / 500 km travel.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

Second, I changed the phrasing of my question. Instead of, "What is your preferred mode of travel...?" I asked, "What mode of travel did you choose last?"

I think this cuts down a lot on the social desirability bias in responses.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social-d…

in reply to Evan Prodromou

For me, the last trip I took of this distance was a family wedding in New Jersey. We drove down in our electric car. It was harder than we expected; the availability of chargers in the Adirondacks was pretty lacking.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

I may go back and re-run my shorter-distance polls with this new phrasing and see how they compare.

Thanks to everyone who replied!

in reply to Evan Prodromou

that difference is important. I prefer taking the train for most long trips but often can't for various reasons.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

I expect country variability also. Trains and distances in Europe vs US vs Australia very different. (Compared with most everywhere else, Australia has very large, nearly empty gaps between major centres and slow trains)
in reply to Evan Prodromou

Not just *social* desirability bias, but true desirability vs practicality. I’d love to take the train more often, but it lends itself best for travel to city centers and not for camping or roadtrips (by definition, of course, but also based on the smaller, more rural stops I’d like to make then).
in reply to Vincent 🌻🇪🇺 en 🌹☘️

@photovince so, first, read about social desirability bias.

It's the tendency to give answers that conform to one's image of oneself, rather than to one's actual behaviour.

in reply to Vincent 🌻🇪🇺 en 🌹☘️

@photovince agreed. I can go to Seattle or Chicago by train. Anywhere else I’m driving or flying. I wish I could take the train more.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

@aaron I mean, it's a connected network. If you want to, you can get to most cities in the US and Canada by train.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

sure. But I don’t want to spend a week getting somewhere. We need high speed rail.
in reply to aaron

ah. So you *could* take the train, but you choose not to.
Questa voce è stata modificata (3 anni fa)
in reply to Evan Prodromou

I want better investments in infrastructure so it’s a more viable option.
in reply to aaron

@aaron do you think that's likely?

I don't think policymakers are going to invest in a network that nobody uses.

That's just throwing money away.

in reply to Evan Prodromou

actually let me rephrase that. I would love to spend a week on a train getting somewhere, but the capitalist hellscape we’re forced to live in does not allow for that extra travel time.
in reply to aaron

@aaron I think if those of us who can manage it shift some of our travel to low-carbon modes like rail, especially when it's only somewhat more inconvenient than flying or driving, it will help build out the rail service and make all trains better.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

on the empire builder is as specific as I will get. amtrak.com/empire-builder-trai…
in reply to aaron

@aaron oh, that's a great train! And it goes right into Chicago, North America's rail hub!
in reply to Evan Prodromou

I certainly prefer trains when I can take them, but often end up having to drive, because Australia's train network is very limited.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

I can think of a few other reasons that could change one's mind, at least where train and plane are concerned:

  • Having to go through complex security procedures (train tends to be easier) cross border
  • Having to go way outside the city to get to/from the transport hub
  • Noise levels (deafening vs normal)
  • Ability to stand up, stretch your legs
  • Snack choice and when to get them
  • Environmental concerns (fuel per 1000 km per 1000 passengers)
in reply to Guillaume Rossolini

@GuillaumeRossolini that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about why many respondents might prefer trains at shorter distances but not longer distances.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

I do believe we are talking about the same thing, at least, that was my intent

Distance might not be the only or the main reason, and respondents may not have made the link between the polls (I hadn't)

in reply to Guillaume Rossolini

@GuillaumeRossolini

So, 69% of respondents said they'd prefer trains for a trip of 200km.

23% of respondents said they booked trains for their last trip of about 1000km.

I am trying to explain the difference in those percentages -- 69% vs 23%.

I said that two possible explanations of those different percentages are a) the way the question was phrased, and b) the distance.

I agree that there are lots of factors in choosing a transportation mode.

in reply to Evan Prodromou

well-mangaged sleeper service largely fixes this problem presuming hotel stays anyway. And, the OBB NightJet is pretty awesome.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

Its a different question, though. Preference versus reality...
in reply to James Brown

I guess that comes down to how you define "preferred".

I'd say that my preferred form of exercise is lifting weights, since that's the one I do most commonly.

If wine-drinking helped me stay in shape, I'd "prefer" to do that instead.

It doesn't, though, so my habitual or "preferred' form is weight lifting.

Questa voce è stata modificata (3 anni fa)
in reply to Evan Prodromou

@roguelazer but, yes, many people thought of "preferred" as "wished-for" instead of "habitual".
in reply to Evan Prodromou

Plane. I wanted to take the train but the only available options for my travel dates involved several stops and half a day, and car rental was 3x as expensive and involved driving in some places I didn't want to try driving.

(I usually drive an EV, which won't make the trip without several recharges.)

in reply to Kat

I feel you on this! Our EV has a range of 250-300km, so we'd need 3 charges minimum to make a 1000km trip. Chargers aren't always spaced exactly 250km apart, though!

We'd probably split it up into two days: drive and lunch + charge, then drive and sleep + charge, then drive and lunch + charge, then drive.

@Kat
in reply to Evan Prodromou

yep, this was for a two-day trip so that seemed inefficient! (I often rent a gas car if I need to make a trip longer than my 150-mi range.)
in reply to Evan Prodromou

@brion flying is about 1.5 hr in the air, but with getting to the airport, check-in, security, then arriving and getting out of the destination airport, I anticipate about 6 hours door-to-door.

That's still a big advantage over driving or train! It only makes sense if price or carbon footprint are *really* important to you.

Once you have 3 or 4 people travelling, that 2-day drive starts to look really economical.

in reply to Evan Prodromou

@Evan Prodromou My "preferred" transport was a 5–7-hour train that doesn't exist but could and should, so it was a plane rather than a 25-hour train ride (wall clock time) with 4 interchanges.
in reply to clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛

yeah, I think "preferred" in terms of "habitual, typical" wasn't understood by a lot of people. So this new form is better.
Questa voce è stata modificata (3 anni fa)
in reply to Evan Prodromou

@Evan Prodromou The difference between the wine drinking as exercise and the train line to Brussels is that the train line is immediately achievable if someone makes the decision. The rail exists, the trains exist, just nobody decided to offer that route.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

Plane, because there's not really any other reliable way to get from the UK to Kenya other than by air!
in reply to Evan Prodromou

Your willingness to convert metric to Imperial/American units betrays your non-native status
in reply to Evan Prodromou

Combined bike, plane, car, boat-ferry, and train.

Ottawa (Bike) Montreal (Plane) Boston (Bike) Bar Harbour (Boat) Yarmouth (Bike) Halifax (Train) Montreal (Bike) Ottawa

Total distance approx. 2,300km

Unknown parent

Evan Prodromou
@brion I think it's probably fair to say that while a solo 15-hour drive is kind of a test of your sanity, a 15-hour drive with 3 other people is a *R*O*A*D* *T*R*I*P* wooooooooo
Unknown parent

Evan Prodromou
@erincandescent that's a great trip

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