The UWAC approach: introduction to the data

It is important that policy making in any area is evidence based, and that it is clear how exactly this evidence was derived. In this chapter we outline the research methods that were used to produce results discussed in Chapters Five to Eight, and from which we derive the policies proposed in Chapters Nine and Ten. A reader eager to get to the results could skip this chapter, but would have to take the evidence presented at face value without fully understanding how it was collected or why we adopted the approach that we did. Research reported in this volume has not developed any new methods, but is unusual and distinctive in the way in which it utilises and combines different elements of a wide range of research methods. We believe that a multi-method approach in which the varying strengths and weaknesses of quantitative and qualitative research are fully recognized, and through which different methods are used to reinforce and strengthen each other, can produce much more insightful and robust research findings than can be generated from studies that utilise only a single approach. Multi-method research is not new, but it is often deployed in limited ways and has rarely been applied in the study of travel behaviour. Most commonly, different methods are utilised in a linear way: for instance, a quantitative questionnaire may be used to provide an overview prior to in-depth interviews with a selection of respondents; or focus groups may be used to identify key themes that are then followed up through a questionnaire. However, in such cases although more than one method is deployed they tend to be interpreted independently, and the different techniques rarely talk directly to each other. This is not surprising as true integration of different approaches is hard to achieve (Castro et al, 2010). However, the Understanding Walking and Cycling (UWAC) research reported in this volume was designed as an integrated package of quantitative, qualitative and spatial research methods and, although we do not avoid all the pitfalls of multi-method research, we have attempted to utilise a wide range of approaches and data to produce a fuller and more integrated interpretation of everyday travel behaviour than is usually the case.