Travel time as quality time: parental attitudes to long distance travel with young children

•We study parents’ decisions about long distance travel with young children.•We explore attitudes and perceptions using semi-structured in-depth interviews.•Long distance travel with children is valued as a positive quality time experience.•Convenience is the overwhelming factor influencing most respondents to opt for car.•Potential exists to capitalise on positive attitudes to rail to instigate modal shift.

Studies into childhood mobility have demonstrated a need to increase public transport use amongst children. However little research has been undertaken looking at the views and attitudes of those making the mobility decisions, namely the parents and care givers with the responsibility for getting children ‘from A to B’. This paper presents the results of 25 in-depth interviews which were undertaken with parents in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the factors influencing mode choice, more specifically whether scope exists to achieve modal shift from car to rail for long distance journeys with young children. The key findings indicate that whilst mode choice is made predominantly for reasons relating to convenience, the way in which travel time is utilised and experienced during long distance journeys indicates considerable scope to attract more families to rail. This is however contingent on the employment of more family-focussed marketing and ‘child friendly’ initiatives on the part of the rail industry.