Using the academic timetable to influence student trip-making behaviour

The university academic timetable is the framework which defines the rhythm of the term-time student activities that occur on campus.

This thesis explores how the design of the academic timetable affects student trip-making behaviour to and from campus and is motivated by concerns around the environmental, social and economic sustainability of the campus-based university.

The thesis investigates the current understanding of student trip-making behaviour and shows that whilst it is informally generally accepted that students may plan their trips to campus around the demands placed on their time by the academic timetable, this appointment based approach is not generally recognised in student trip models.

The thesis demonstrates that it is the timetable which is the main driver of student travel demand, that changes to the timetable can influence trip-making behaviour, and that a policy of timetable compression, combined with a greater use of online resources could be employed to reduce student trips to/from campus and student presence on it, thereby making the university more environmentally sustainable.

However, students with compressed timetables appear to be less engaged with their studies, and exhibit a greater degree of variation in terms of their attainment level compared with students whose timetables force them to be on campus on an almost full-time basis.

Students appear to prefer timetables that limit the time they need to spend on campus, and the thesis suggests that addressing this mismatch between what students currently appear to want, and what seems to offer them the best potential academic outcome represents a major future challenge to the long term academic sustainability of the campus based university.