Questionnaire - Extended Project Qualification

[dom_mike]

Hiya,
I am writing a dissertation about the efficiency of the British Railways compared to that of the Japanese railways. It would be very helpful if you could answer my short survey about passenger rail in the UK.
Thanks!

Microsoft Forms

forms.office.com

 

[chrisjo]

Gave up at Q5. You want me to work out the average daily delay? Over what time period? Re-think.

 

[realemil]

I filled it out for you. Just thought about my journeys I took and gave the best figure I could for delay for Q5.

No need to spend hours overthinking it

 

[45517]

Hiya,
I am writing a dissertation about the efficiency of the British Railways compared to that of the Japanese railways. It would be very helpful if you could answer my short survey about passenger rail in the UK.
Thanks!

Microsoft Forms

forms.office.com

Out of interest, which course are you studying?
How do TOC-level questions, routes and destinations help when comparing 'British Railways' to Japan, will you also be surveying different lines within Japan ?
Will your 'efficiency' calculation be based on input cost v benefits delivered, relative staffing levels, utilisation of resources etc ?
Just curious.

 

[OverSpeed]

I think you also need to take into consideration how majority of the modern british railways network is based on old victorian routes and to this day how that effects routes,stations and the daily running of it (including closed lines and stations).

And compaired to japanese railways where they could re-build their old network after the end of WW2 due to damage, even though they have (maybe the best) high speed routes in the world , they too have had very similar outcomes when it comes to rail travel like we have had in the UK with ridership dwindling, lines and stations closing.

 

[Ant1966]

Have filled it in for you.

A few thoughts on the survey:

• Agree with others on Q5, you might want to think about a different way of wording that to capture the range of delays that users experience, rather than asking them to pick one delay time for 'your train'. Which train?
• Some questions might benefit from allowing the users to select more than one option
• On Q8, its good pratice to be clear to the user than 10 is Good and 1 bad. You might assume people would realise that, but never assume anything with people and surveys!
• As others have also said; how are you getting an equivalent data set for 'Japan', in order to compare?
• Finally, stating the obvious, but this forum and its users are very much NOT representative of the British public when it comes to railways. We are are very skewed sample (insert your own jokes here). It might be interesting to also do this survey on a different group (not rail enthusiasts) and see what differences you can find.

Best of luck with your EPQ, let us know how you get on! (if you want any more advice then I and others on this very friendly and knowledgeable forum will I'm sure be happy to help)

 

[Purple Train]

Have filled it in for you.

A few thoughts on the survey:

• Agree with others on Q5, you might want to think about a different way of wording that to capture the range of delays that users experience, rather than asking them to pick one delay time for 'your train'. Which train?
• Some questions might benefit from allowing the users to select more than one option
• On Q8, its good pratice to be clear to the user than 10 is Good and 1 bad. You might assume people would realise that, but never assume anything with people and surveys!
• As others have also said; how are you getting an equivalent data set for 'Japan', in order to compare?
• Finally, stating the obvious, but this forum and its users are very much NOT representative of the British public when it comes to railways. We are are very skewed sample (insert your own jokes here). It might be interesting to also do this survey on a different group (not rail enthusiasts) and see what differences you can find.

I do very much agree with the last point! One thing perhaps to bear in mind is that you will probably need to rephrase a few of the questions if you're dealing with a "non-specialist" (for want of a better term) audience. For instance, rather than just asking question 5, you may wish to ask, for instance, roughly what percentage of trains taken are delayed, and then by roughly how long on average (you would probably also be better off having more than four groups, as "under 15 minutes" would probably encompass 99.8% of answers) - it still may well not be that accurate, but then there is a very fine old saying about statistics!

Obviously it depends on what you're trying to do, but I'm not sure whether a passenger survey is the best gauge of "efficiency". If you're looking at it in terms of delays, you might be better off looking at the punctuality statistics (I'm not a railway professional, and I confess I have briefly forgotten the name for them!) - if you're looking at how efficient they are in terms of moving passengers from A to B in a short time, I am perfectly happy to rant about how awful the connections are on my commute!

I hope you're enjoying your EPQ (it definitely sounds like you are!) and I wish you the very, very best of luck with it. I certainly wouldn't be feeling as dedicated this close to the Christmas holidays!

 

[vuzzeho]

done good luck