It’s a bit glib, but that is essentially the conclusion that has come out of the first paper I’ve written from the survey data. In Dublin, people who travel actively (cycle or walk) are happier than people who use public transport or travel by car.
Things that don’t affect your happiness include:
- how far you travel
- how often you travel
- how much you spent travelling
- whether or not you own a car
- whether or not you have access to a car
- how much time you spend travelling
- being a student vs working
Things that do affect your happiness include:
- having active travel as your dominant mode of travel (makes you happier)
- how you perceive your health (if you think your health is good or very good, you’re a whole lot likelier to be happier)
- being a man (men are slightly happier)
- being unemployed vs being a student or working (you’re a lot more likely to be unhappy if you’re depressed)
Of course, we all “know” this already
Will the data stand up to scrutiny (or are numbers small & from a self-selecting group)?
I’d love a robust study to show results like this. Have you any plans for some sort of intervention?
The numbers for this are pretty decent – 1,744 people in Dublin, though they were self-selecting. I’m considering running a slightly similar analysis on the census data using the health and how do you get to work questions. Problem is the data currently available includes everyone over 5 years old, and school children often don’t have much choice about how they get to school.
No plans for an intervention at the moment, but the level of cycling in Dublin has increased rapidly in the last few years, in part due to intervention from DCC and the economy. Against that, it’d be very difficult to design something that works. I might look again at well-being versus aspects of the urban environment (parks, trees, public transport access, number of shops), and if that throws up anything try an intervention. It’s unlikely though, I prefer to look for natural interventions and see if what you expect to happen actually does.