Transport In Guildford

Authors Avatar
"Guildford's Transport System Is Unsustainable"

Introduction

The aim of this investigation is to find out whether or not Guildford's transport system is sustainable. In order to prove or disprove the hypothesis I am going to investigate the following enquiry questions:

. Does Guildford Town Centre suffer from traffic congestion throughout the day?

2. Does Guildford's transport system encourage people to use alternative forms of transport to the car?

3. How far are people prepared to travel to get to Guildford?

4. Are there enough parking spaces in Guildford?

5. Where and when does congestion build up in Guildford?

6. Are there enough cycle routes in Guildford?

The reasons for investigating transport systems are because governments are trying to discourage people from using their cars and to begin using public transport systems to reduce air pollution, traffic accidents and congestion.

We are studying transport because it is very topical at the moment because of global warming - contributed to by car exhaust fumes - which may cause many undesired effects such as the ozone layer thickening, causing the polar ice-caps to melt and sea levels rising causing widespread flooding. This means governments are dedicating lots of time to improve transport systems, and it is relevant because we are studying a local area, which will affect us.

Transport trends show that the number of cars has increased dramatically on the road, the number of cars per household has increased and people are making more journeys, more often and going further, this is because many people work too far from their houses to walk and they like to visit other places, see other people who live further away etc.

The objective of sustainable development is to make progress but not at the expense of the environment. The UN definition is: "A sustainable city is a city where achievements in social, economic, and physical development are made to last. A sustainable city has a lasting supply of the natural resources on which its development depends (using them only at a level of sustainable yield). A sustainable city maintains a lasting security from environmental hazards which may threaten development achievements (allowing only for acceptable risk)."

Examples of sustainable transport systems that have already been used in the UK are:

* The Park and Ride service from Guildford Town Centre to Guildford University and Guildford Spectrum.

* The Hopper bus designed specifically to take elderly people to a destination of their choice.

* Congestion charges designed to encourage people to use public transport rather than travelling by car/their own vehicle through already congested streets such as the A281 through Guildford.

* The M6 Toll road (where vehicles have to pay to continue along the road. Toll charges vary depending on the size of vehicle and pollution emitted.

* Trains, such as SouthWest which link up the whole country and allow people to travel long distances on public transport.

Where Guildford is in England:

Guildford, Surrey

Where Guildford is locally:

A3 runs near to Guildford, traffic from the South coast of England might use the A3 and then cut through Guildford to get to London

Guildford Town.

Nearest town in similar size to Guildford.

Guildford is located in the South East of England in the county of Surrey, it is also on the commuter belt to London, which has increased the traffic flow over the last 20 years and contributed to congestion. The population of Guilford in 2001 was 129701 (Statistic from: www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pyramids/pages/43ud.asp)

There are more cars on the road today than ever before because they are very a convenient transportation method and people are earning

are money making cars more affordable. Also many more people are commuting longer distances to school or work making them a greater part of everyday life. They are also generally faster than public transport and you can go directly to your destination whenever you want, which you can't do on buses and trains, increasing their appeal.

Methodology

I will carry out my data collection on 12th June 2007. Primary data will be important for my investigation because I will know exactly what it is and how reliable it is which I won't know if I only use secondary data. The advantages of this are that I will know that my results are reliable and unbiased and not twisted to show a particular point of view as they sometimes are in media, especially tabloids. The first piece of primary data I will collect will be a questionnaire. I will ask 30 people on Guildford high street near the middle of the day. I will ask closed questions only, not open questions because it will be quicker to carry out and people don't usually want to hang around doing questionnaires for ages. Also closed questions will be easy to analyse and represent in graph format. The questions I will ask are:
Join now!


* How old are you? This will have different age ranges to tick and will help us because we will be able to see he difference in opinion between older and younger people.

* Do you live in Guildford? This will determine whether or not the person taking the questionnaire has travelled to/from Guildford.

* Do you think Guildford Town Centre suffers from traffic congestion? This will find out the public opinion as to the answer of enquiry question 1.

* How did you travel here today? This question will have a variety of different ...

This is a preview of the whole essay