Enjoying the Commute: Wellbeing Benefits of the Public Transport Journey

This article presents the argument that the travel experience, not just the infrastructure, is central to how public transport projects are conceptualised, funded and operated. This responds the idea of a sustainable city within which advocates seek the 20-min city in which there is support for a mode switch from the car to public and active transport. The narrow and traditional utilitarian concepts are challenged including cost benefit analysis that asserts that time commuting has little to no value or simply is a ‘means to an end’, and that of transit orientated development with its focus on infrastructure planning and delivery. In contrast, the experience of travel and the value of transit systems connecting places is fundamental to promoting public transit systems. These modes of transit can be pleasurable and contribute to the user’s eudaimonic physical and mental wellbeing. It is proposed that individual and social wellbeing has significant utility, and that evidence-based studies using established measures of subjective wellbeing and social capital, are needed to capture the rich social, communal dimensions and spatial connectivity that public train systems afford. Recommendations for future research, transport policy and urban planning are advanced for addressing the contribution of subjective and social wellbeing in transit studies and these can broaden the consideration of the current focus on physical health benefits in support of liveable cities.