How would people respond to a new railway extension? The value of questionnaire surveys

How would people respond to a new railway extension? It is not surprising to expect the answer to differ in an automobile-oriented society and a transit-oriented one. Nonetheless, there are more and more successful stories of transit-oriented development in automobile-oriented societies. On the other hand, some new railway lines in transit-oriented societies were not as successful as their predecessors. West Rail in Hong Kong is a case in point. Hong Kong is a well-known transit-oriented society, where about 90% of the total daily passenger trips were made on public transport; and about 35% of the public transport volume was made on the heavy railway system (Hong Kong SAR Government. (2006). Hong Kong 2006. Hong Kong: Hong Kong SAR Government). Increasingly, the success of a new railway extension cannot be guaranteed even in a transit-oriented society. Conversely, railways may not be doomed to failure even in an automobile-oriented society. The ways how people respond to a new railway extension can better be captured by questionnaire surveys and a spatial conceptual framework which recognizes transport as part of the living environment. In particular, the findings of a questionnaire survey, which was carried out more than 5 years ago before the opening of West Rail, have stood against the test of time. The analysis suggests that information from questionnaire surveys could be highly useful in railway planning.