Stress Levels for London Travelers - Research Paper Example

Stress Levels for London Travelers Abstract This research involves a study of the rail transport in London, and particularly the subway. It looks at the various stress levels that people face in terms of delays, time of day in which they have to travel, the amount of money they spend or save by using the subway and the number of people that use trains. The research was carried out by the filling out of questionnaires that were administered by the group members at different subway stations. It was a preferred research because of the high dependence that people have on subways in this region, and hence a key area of determining whether people get stressed when they need to travel. The research found that travelers, especially those on official missions or have just left work, are particularly frustrated by the little delays and hitches that regularly occur at the subway stations. The cost of travel was not as stressful as the overcrowding of the train cars and the peak-hour delays. Introduction The research will mostly focus on finding out why people tend to get stressed up when traveling through the subway, although they heavily rely on this means of transport. It will also look at the different stress levels among London travelers. Historically, the train came to revolutionize the transportation industry. Its ability to carry many people over long distances improved the efficiency of moving people and goods from one place to another. Technological developments have led to improvements in the train transport sector through the creation of modern speed trains. These trains are faster than the early coal trains. They can transport many people to distant places within a very short time, hence have enabled the creation of train circuits. These trains have been incorporated into subways that are underground stations in which people can board the trains to and from work, as well as traveling to other errands. The overdependence of trains in London has led to the overcrowding of the subways (Antoniou, 2005). As such, people tend to squeeze themselves in the coaches so as not to have to wait for the next trains. Regular delays have also been experienced due to technical problems arising in some of the trains that have to work endlessly throughout the day. Some investors have also taken advantage of this popularity of trains and have increased prices to get more profits from the travelers. This research will look at all these cons of the subway system and analyze their effects on the regular traveler. The main effect focused on is the stress levels in people traveling by train through the subway system. Hence, the hypothesis of the research is stated as: delays, overcrowding and the cost of travel cause the high level of stress among subway travelers. Method The participants of this research were the subway travelers of London. There are frequent subway users in this international city, and they tend to depend on the trains more than buses or any other means of transport. These participants were selected from the peak hours of traveling, which are usually early mornings as they go to work or evenings as they return home from work. The participants were aged between 25 to 40 years, which is the active working class group of people. These participants, though from a particular age bracket, were randomly selected to give information on their levels of stress as affected by traveling needs. Most of them turned out to be employees and subway travel was a daily routine. The material used for the research was a questionnaire. This questionnaire was designed to get the most appropriate information on stress levels in individuals traveling through the subway. It was administered considering ethics requirements so as not to infringe on anyone’s personal space or waste their time as they headed to or from work. The questions were arranged in a logical manner, concentrating on three main sources of stress among travelers. The main one was delays in the subway, followed by the number of people traveling relative to overcrowding in the coaches. Thirdly, there was the issue of the amount people had to pay to go by train, and whether it was reasonably fair. These issues were assessed through the questionnaire while at the same time relating them to the time of day in which people were traveling. The experiment was designed with three predictor variables and one criterion variable. The predictor variables are the delays, overcrowding and cost of travel in the subway services. They are variable and change over time, depending on the time one chooses to travel. However, London, being a busy city, has an almost constant level of these parameters, with a spike in the peak morning and evening hours. The criterion variable used was the level of stress in the individuals who took part in the experiment. It was examined through the frustrations that the travelers expressed towards the subway service and how frequently they occurred. The questionnaire was designed to bring out the relationship between the predictor variables and the criterion variable. The three predictor variables are independent, and the criterion variable is dependent on them. The research followed a simple procedure. The group members had copies of the printed questionnaire and went to the subways in turns. The participants were randomly selected from the people waiting to board the train in the subway and those alighting from them. Each of them was approached individually. To get them to participate, the team members showed them their school identification cards and requested for five minutes of their time. They were briefed and assured that whatever information they provided would be treated with utmost confidentiality. They were also informed about the purpose of the questionnaire and prepared through some facts about the rail travel through the subway system. After that, they were issued the questionnaires, which were arranged in a manner that ensured they had few pages that would not tire them in filling, considering that some were in a hurry to get to work and others exhausted after their shift at work. The participants were given the chance to fill privately in the questionnaire in case they would feel watched when filling them in our presence. They would then submit them to us. Some of them requested to take them away and promised to mail them to us. The team members had the contacts to which the questionnaires would be sent for the participants who preferred to carry them away. More than half of those who carried them mailed them, which was a good figure in terms of the response expected. Some of them even requested for a confirmation of the receipt of the filled questionnaire, and this was sent as soon as it was received. The participants were expected to give the levels of stress they felt based on a scale of 1 to 5. These levels depended on whether they had been delayed, found an overcrowded station or felt constrained by the pricing of the fares. The range was given the values as very satisfied, not stressed, moderately stressed, stressed, and very stressed respectively. 50 participants were used, with each researcher administering the questionnaire to 10 of them. After filling the questionnaires, the participants were debriefed and informed of the reasons for the study. They were also told that the information in the questionnaires would be treated with high levels of importance so as to ensure that they did not feel like their time had been wasted. They were also informed that the research would at one point be used to improve the subway services throughout London, and probably change how they operated so as to benefit the travelers. They were also thanked for their participation in the research. Results From the data collected through the questionnaires, many travelers using the subway were frustrated by more than two of the variable factors, the leading one being the delays that regularly occurred at the stations. The following data shows the number of people who were stressed by the three independent variables of delays, overcrowding and cost respectively as collected by the five researchers: 7,2,1; 5,4,1; 4,3,3; 5,3,2; 6,1,3. The five sets of data show that delays at the subway were the primary cause of stress among the travelers, and the table of means can be given as in figure1 below as derived from SISA software. Figure 1: Table of means and one-way ANOVA for data collected The tabulated statistics are a clear indication that nearly all of the passengers that travel through the subway have a reason to be stressed up at one time during their travel. The biggest source of frustration is the regular delays that occur at the stations, probably due to faulty trains or too much activity along the rail tracks. Discussion The data collected and analyzed proves that the average human being is psychologically tortured by various mishaps that occur as they travel. This psychological effect is stress that is displayed in the form of frustrations and anger. Questionnaires are the best means of gathering such information since they already have pre-defined questions regarding the issue at hand. They also save on time unlike interviews that require adequate preparation for the interviewer and interviewee. The results thus support the hypothesis that the delays in the subway stations, the overcrowding in these places and the cost of traveling are the primary causes of high levels of stress among travelers. Conclusion One of the weaknesses of the study was that it failed to check on the causes of the train delays and hitches from the side of the companies that run them. This analysis would have been beneficial in drawing conclusions. The fact that some travelers were already stressed up when they left work and headed to the subway was also ignored. These problems could be countered by taking a more comprehensive study of the subway throughout the day instead of the peak hours and getting facts from the companies running the trains business. An interesting study would be on the frustrations on the train drivers themselves in their daily duties and the effects of these frustrations on travelers. References Antoniou, A. S., & Cooper, C. L. (2005). Research Companion to Organizational Health Psychology. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Pub. Read More