Transport Market Research

Transport Market Research

We work extensively within the transport sector delivering research in to the wider market as well as more social research focussed projects with citizens, passengers, users and other stakeholders.

We deliver research solutions for a range of organisations, including local authorities to understand issues such as transport uptake and perceptions, identify sentiment around changing policies – for instance Clean Air Zone Consultations – and test the need for, and expectations of, new developments such as park and ride schemes, new road layouts or infrastructure projects such as cycle paths and cycle lanes or workplace travel plans.

We also work with organisations, including local authorities as well as third sector organisations, which focus on encouraging behaviour change in the transport sector – either through marketing and communications campaigns or through alterations to infrastructure and behavioural design.

We also support sector bodies. These can include local transport executives such as Transport for West Midlands and Transport for Greater Manchster, as well as national organisations with specific responsibilities, such as the Office of Rail and Road, and via them, the Rail Delivery Group.

Finally, our experience and involvement across the wider sector has seen us work directly with a range of passenger focussed organisations including more than 20 train operating companies (TOCs) and bus service operators.

We can offer a range of approaches depending on the audience to be engaged, and regulary undertake work with:

• Passengers – for instance, our experience delivering large scale tracking sureys focussed on customer complaint resolution and, separately, tracking research to understand satisfaction with the Passenger Assist service available on British railways
• Citizens / Residents – examples include large scale consultations to understand reactions to proposed Clean Air Zones in Leeds and Stoke and Newcastle, in-station interviewing across the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority to understand use of park and ride schemes, and more in-depth research to understand the drivers of active travel in places like Cardiff and across Surrey.
• Businesses and stakeholders – including work to engage business around the impact of new policies (e.g. CAZs, LTPs) as well as specific transport orientated businesses such as taxi firms in relation to Local Transport Plans.

M·E·L Research has the in-house resources to deliver the full range of solutions across a range of transport market research projects, as well as the expertise to engage more vulnerable or hard-to-reach audiences and ensure seldom heard voices, who can often be disproportionately impacted by transport policy, are heard.