which business travellers use mobile communication technologies and the ... almost 150 people responded, as well as 15 telephone interviews conducted with .... questions on people's work-related driving patterns and the extent to which they.
Driving, Communicating and Working: Understanding the Work-Related Communication Behaviours of Business Travellers on Work-Related Car Journeys
Donald Hislop, accepted for publication in Mobilities
Abstract
Despite an increasing number of workers requiring to travel extensively in carrying out their work, there are significant gaps in knowledge related to how business travellers make use of journey time. This paper addresses this gap in knowledge by examining the journey-time behaviours of business people travelling by car on work-related journeys. One of the central focuses of the paper is on the extent to which business travellers use mobile communication technologies and the extent to which they experience a pressure to remain in ‘perpetual contact’ with colleagues and clients while travelling.
Introduction
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Evidence suggests that in recent years there has been a significant growth in the number of workers who require to travel extensively in carrying out their work. However, despite this, relatively little is known about how such travellers make use of their journey time. While a number of papers provide some evidence on this topic (for example Ferguson 2009, Hislop & Axtell 2009, Laurier 2004) these studies have all been of very specific types of worker, with Ferguson for example focussing on social workers, and Hislop & Axtell (2009) focussing on management consultants. Thus there are significant gaps in knowledge. A key contribution of this paper is to address this gap in knowledge through examining how a heterogeneous sample of UK workers made use of journey time while travelling on work-related journeys.
A number of writers suggest that developments in mobile communication technologies such as mobile phones, mobile email devices and laptop computers have the potential to change people’s communication patterns in significant ways. Firstly, these technologies have the potential to allow people to communicate from anywhere (Katz & Aakhus 2002), including while driving (White et al 2010). Further, they also have the potential to affect the intensity of people’s communication patterns through increasing the extent to which people check for and respond to email messages and phone calls (Green 2002). Thus, one specific focus in the paper is on the extent to which and ways in which business travellers make use of these technologies to communicate while one the move.
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To examine these issues the paper presents the results of a research study which involved business drivers who made use of a motorway service station in the English Midlands. This research involved both the distribution of a survey, to which almost 150 people responded, as well as 15 telephone interviews conducted with a sample of survey respondents. Thus the paper presents a range of quantitative and qualitative research data that provides rich insights into the how the business travellers researched made use of their journey time.
The paper begins by reviewing relevant literature to both highlight the gaps in it that exist and to clarify the focus of the paper. After this further details on the research data that was collected are presented. The single largest section of the paper comes next, which gives insights into the travel, communication and work experiences of the drivers examined. This section is divided into a three separate sections to allow examination of key stages of people’s journeys. Data is thus presented not only on what the travellers did while actually driving, but also during static stages of their journey, when using motorway service stations, and when sitting in their parked cars. The paper then concludes with a discussion which reflects on the main findings of the paper.
Working While Travelling by Car: Knowledge and Gaps
While a significant number of workers require to regularly be mobile for their work, travelling between and working at diverse locations (Felstead et al 2005, Hislop & 3
Axtell 2009), surprisingly, the travel behaviours of such workers are poorly understood, and arguably under-researched (Holley et al 2008). Research on workrelated travel reveals the specific and distinctive characteristics of different modes of transport and has highlighted how this impacts on worker’s travel behaviours (see, for example, Axtell et al 2008 and Lyons et al 2007 on train-based travel, Lassen 2006 on plane-based travel, and Laurier 2004 on car-based travel). This paper is sensitive to these specificities and begins addressing the gap in knowledge regarding such journeys by examining the travel behaviours of some UK workers who regular travel by car for work.
A number of papers provide insights into various aspects of work-related car journeys. Ferguson (2009) provides rich insights into the central role of the car in the work of social workers. This highlights the multiple uses that cars play, including being mobile offices, where paperwork can be processes, and phone calls can be made, and a ‘secure base’ where social workers can escape the challenges of dealing with hostile clients. However, the main role provided by the car was as a therapeutic space where intimate conversations could occur between social workers and their clients. In this respect, Ferguson talks of the car as being a ‘fluid container’, where, ‘the car driver provides a facilitating environment within which children can be physically and emotionally ‘held’ and ‘contained’’, (p. 286).
Hislop & Axtell (2009) highlight the types of work tasks undertaken by some consultants in their cars while travelling on work-related journeys (typically making
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work-related and social phone calls to colleagues). Laurier (2004) provides a detailed analysis of a portion of one journey undertaken by a worker he was shadowing, and revealed the extent to which they attempted to work while actually driving, where the worker reviewed paperwork while driving. Finally, Laurier & Philo (2003) analyze the work of a single Area Sales and Marketing Manager where the car played a key role in the organization of a region through the role it played in moving people and objects within it.
However, despite the insights provided by these studies, significant gaps remain in understanding how business travellers utilize journey time on work-related car journeys. Firstly, all these studies have been on relatively small samples, and very specific types of worker. Thus there are limitations to their generalizibility, and knowledge on car-based business traveller’s time usage is partial and fragmented. Secondly, these studies have generally focussed on the ‘mobile’ element of car journeys, when people are travelling/driving through geographic space, and what occurs during static stages of journeys, for example when people make stops, is relatively neglected. Both of these limitations are addressed by the empirical data presented here.
Travel, Work, and Communication
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Transport policy has typically assumed that worker’s travel time is wasted, dead or unproductive time, where they are unable to effectively carry out any work activities while travelling (Holley et al 2008, Lyons & Urry 2005). However, changes in the nature of work (Lyons & Urry 2005), combined with developments in mobile computer and communication technologies challenge such assumptions. Advances in mobile communication technologies such as mobile phones or mobile email devices, in tandem with the development of wireless and hands-free facilities, means that these technologies increasingly have the potential to offer what Katz & Aakhus (2002) refer to as ‘perpetual contact’, where people can communicate (and work) from virtually anywhere, including while travelling and driving (Felstead et al 2005, Hislop & Axtell 2009). Fortunati (2002) suggests that this functionality of these technologies means they can radically change the way people construct and experience time and space through the way they allow people to manage their ‘absent presence’ in contexts where they are not physically located (Gergen 2002, Licoppe 2004).
Green (2002) suggests that communication via mobile technologies can also facilitate an ‘intensification’, and ‘speeding up’ of communicative interactions, talking about, ‘an unprecedented level of simultaneous copresent and tele-present interaction made possible through mobile communication technologies’, (p. 284). Fundamentally, people’s use of these technologies has the potential to reduce response times, where people increasingly respond quickly to incoming messages, which they feel a need to continually check for. The use of handheld technologies with email facilities
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provides a good example of this process, with much research suggesting that users of these technologies often feel a need or compulsion to increasingly check for and respond to messages (Middleton & Cukier 2006). A specific example of this process is provided by Orlikowski (2007) from a study of a small private equity firm in the USA. In this firm the use of mobile email technologies had a significant impact on people’s communication patterns and resulted in people feeling an, ‘increased obligation to be continually responsive’, (p. 1444).
The implications of these developments for workers driving on work-related journeys is that they may experienced increased pressure to continually use mobile communication technologies while travelling to allow them to remain actively involved in work-related communication networks while they travel. Some of the empirical studies of travel time usage, both on car and train-based journeys reinforce such a conclusion. Firstly, as highlighted earlier, Hislop & Axtell (2009) found that making phone calls represented the main work activity undertaken by consultants when driving. Further, the work of Lyons and colleagues (Holley et al 2008, Jain & Lyons 2008, Lyons et al 2007), which has predominantly been on travel time usage on train journeys also highlights how business travellers typically do not regard journey time as wasted or unproductive time, through their ability to be able to work during much of their journey time, and how mobile phones generally facilitated their efforts to work.
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However, this work also highlighted how mobile communication technologies had the potential to undermine some of the positive uses that business travellers could make of journey time. In identifying the potential positive uses that could be made of travel time Jain and Lyon’s (2008) highlighted the way in which travel time could provide ‘time out’ from the demands of work and/or home and that journeys thus represented potentially ‘impermeable ‘protected’ spaces’, (p. 86). However, they also highlighted how mobile communication technologies had the potential to ’revoke this escape’ (p. 86) through the pressure/expectation people might experience to continually undertake work-related communications while travelling. Holley et al (2008) make a similar argument in their analysis of how business travel time could be used. They suggest that if travel time does provide opportunities to escape the immediate, ongoing demands of work (such as to complete particular tasks, or to make or take particular phone calls or emails), that such time may provide an opportunity to rest and recover from work demands, and that it may also provide relatively uninterrupted thinking time which may facilitate creativity. However, they also suggest that possessing mobile communication technologies may undermine people’s ability to use travel time in this way through allowing the demands of work to continually impinge on travel time.
The Production of (Work)space
The issues examined in previous sections also have implications for how workspace is conceptualized, and challenge the idea of workspace as constituting a static and 8
permanent location. In contrast, for mobile workers, the workplace represents ‘any space that they are able to use/manipulate for work purposes, on however a temporary basis’, (Hislop & Axtell 2009, p. 74). Such a definition highlights the agency of workers in the ongoing construction of workspace, which links to Lefebvre’s assumptions concerning the socially produced nature of all space (Lefebvre 1991). A useful framework for conceptualizing how space is produced is developed by Taylor & Spicer (2007), who utilize Lefebvre’s distinction between three separate types of social process involved in the production of space: practices, planning and imagining. Practices relate to activities carried out by people in space (such as sitting, moving etc), planning relates to how the use of space is designed (for example by architects), and imagining relates to the meanings people attach to space and how people make sense of and understand the spaces they create, occupy and use.
The focus in this paper is on the (work) practices undertaken by mobile workers in the various locations they utilize and travel through while undertaking work-related car journeys. More specifically, the central focus is on their communication practices, which are undertaken via the use of the various mobile computer and communication technologies they typically carry with them. Taylor & Spicer’s framework is utilized here to highlight not only how the worker’s communication practices can be understood as actively constructing a workspace ‘on the move’, but to also acknowledge that such practices change the nature of the spaces that they are carried out in. Thus, for example, a worker making a phone call from a
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motorway café is not only creating a (temporary) workspace, but is also shaping the nature of the café space (by making noise that may be heard by other café users). Watts (2008), while using slightly different terminology, adopts a similar perspective to the construction of time-space on a train journey, talking about how the ‘crafting’ activities of passengers (the way in which people rearrange material and social relations) constructed journey time-space in particular ways (for example affecting noise levels within carriages).
In examining car-based journeys, the focus is not simply on what people do while driving. Instead, the focus, as with Watts’ (2008) analysis of travel time on a train journey from Lancaster to St. Ives, is on the whole journey experience, with carbased journeys being understood as involving a number of stages, or elements, such as sitting in the car while parked, or making a strategic stop on a journey at a particular location, such as a motorway service station.
Overall therefore this paper addresses the gap in knowledge regarding the work and communication behaviours of workers on car-based journeys, examining how they make use of travel time during the various stages of such journeys. The paper is framed by a perspective that understands space as being socially produced and conceptualizes the worker’s activities as playing a key role in shaping the nature of the spaces they travel through. A central focus is on how they use mobile technologies to communicate while travelling, to consider the extent to which they
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experience a pressure to maintain ‘perpetual contact’ with relevant colleagues and clients while travelling.
Research Method
The data presented here is taken from a wider study of how workers make use of travel time while on work related journeys which compares the experiences of people travelling by car, plane and train. The focus here is narrowly on those who undertook car-based journeys. The study of car-based business travellers was undertaken in two stages, with the first stage involving the distribution of largely quantitative surveys, and the second involving qualitative, semi-structured interviews, undertaken with a selection of survey respondents.
The survey asked questions on a range of topics. In terms of demographic data, information was collected on age, gender and occupation. The survey asked questions on people’s work-related driving patterns and the extent to which they used different technologies (such as mobile phones, laptop computers, pen and paper) and carried out different types of work task during different stages of the work-related car journeys they undertook. Most questions were closed and typically used a 5 point rating scale, although there was also a small number of open questions. Surveys were distributed to business travellers at a motorway service station on the M1 motorway in the English Midlands. Surveys were distributed to business travellers at various times over the course of two days in June 2009. With 11
over 290 surveys being distributed, and 149 completed surveys being returned, the response rate was over 51%. In terms of gender, 80% of the survey respondents were male, and 20% female. In terms of age, 70% of survey respondents were between the ages of 40 and 60.
For the second stage of the research a sample of 15 survey respondents were interviewed by telephone. A representative range of survey respondents were selected for interview, with 12 of the 15 respondents being men, interviewees being aged between 38 and 60, and with interviewees undertaking a diverse range of jobs (see Table 1). The interviews were semi-structured, with all covering the same core topics which included the character of people’s general work and work-related driving patterns, the factors which influenced whether they attempted to work while on work-related car journeys as well as the type of work tasks that people carried out on different stages of work-related car journeys (such as when driving, when parked, and when in service stations). The purpose of the interviews was to follow up and probe on issues that emerged from the survey findings. The interviews lasted for between 20-30 minutes, and were all tape recorded and transcribed.
Insert Table 1 about here
Experiences of Travelling, Communicating and Working
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The analysis of the survey and interview data revealed that car-based journeys can be conceptualized as being made up of succession of distinguishable and relatively discrete stages (such as driving, sitting in the car while parked, making use of service station facilities) and that how travellers behaved varied greatly between stages. Thus the presentation of people’s work-related activity is organized into separate sections, examining the key stages of car-based journeys separately.
Before doing so, some general information on the cohort of business travellers survey is presented. Firstly, the journeys undertaken by those surveyed were not commutes, involving travel from home to office and back. Instead, the journeys they undertook were intrinsic to their work, and involved travelling between diverse locations during the working day. Secondly, survey data highlighted the extent to which car-based travel was a significant element in their work. Thus, 32% of respondents travelled by car for work-related purposes 2-3 times per week, and 51% did so on a daily basis. Further, over a quarter of respondents said these workrelated journeys averaged 1-2 hours in length, while almost 40% of them said they typically lasted 3-4 hours. Thus what the survey data revealed was that the workers examined typically worked at a diverse range of locations and spent a significant amount of their working time travelling by car.
Driving
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One of the key issues explored in the survey and interviews was the extent to which (and ways in which) business travellers made use of mobile phones while driving. While survey evidence suggests that a significant proportion of people make regular use of mobile phones while driving (Brusque & Alauzet 2008, White et al 2010) few studies have examined the driving-related phone use patterns of business drivers. Answers to the survey questions on phone use while driving revealed two key findings (see Table 2). Firstly, a high proportion of respondents made extensive use of their phones while driving, with over 54% of respondents using their phone while driving either ‘quite a lot’ or ‘a great deal’. The second key finding from the survey was that a significant proportion of respondents regularly experienced a conflict between driving and dealing with phone calls, with 31% reporting this as occurring ‘occasionally’, while 25% reported this to occur either ‘quite a lot’ or ‘a great deal’.
Insert Table 2 about here
These findings thus suggest that many of the drivers surveyed felt a need, or pressure to sustain the type of ‘perpetual contact’ that Katz & Aakhus (2002) talked about. This finding was also reinforced by the interview data. The interviews provided good insights into not only people’s phone use patterns, but also the sense of pressure or obligation they experienced to deal with and make calls and the extent to which calls distracted them from driving. The first two quotes below
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illustrate the phone use behaviours of two interviewees who made extensive use of their phones while driving. ‘When I was driving back from St Neots the other day, I’d come off the A14, I was on the M1 and I didn’t even know I’d done it. I’d basically driven for an hour constantly on the phone … I must admit I think I make more phone calls when I’ve driving than I would do when I’m in the office’, C11.
‘I can commute from Bradford to where I live in Worcester and sometimes [can] be on the phone almost all of the time, maybe 80% of the time’, C2.
The interview data suggests that the reasons why many drivers used their phones extensively, while being aware of the distraction they could cause, was that they felt under pressure to both make use of their driving time productively, and to deal with calls regarded as urgent or necessary. The sense of a need to deal with calls while driving is vividly illustrated in the following two quotations, ‘a lot of the things I can generally deal with over the telephone regardless of how difficult they are. In the business that I’m in, a lot of the calls lead to another call and another call and then a return call to the original one so, it is a communication based thing and people need answers relatively quickly and they expect you to be able to answer. So I don’t often defer them [calls]’, C2.
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‘If it was an inbound [call] and it was of vital importance that I spoke to that person, then obviously the temptation is to answer the call. I’m not going to claim to be any saint saying I never use my phone in the car because yes, sometimes I do’, C13.
The type of mobile phone technology drivers had played a key role in shaping the extent to which they used their phones while driving. For example, the survey data revealed that drivers possessing ‘hands free’ facilities were much more likely than those with hand held phones to make calls while driving. The following two quotations illustrate this, I’ve got a hands-free kit, so if there’s anything really urgent then you can deal with it, even if it’s just to say “Well, next time I stop I’ll ring you back and deal with it properly,” or “Yes, you need to do this”’, C15.
’Because you can do voice dial it’s easy because you don’t have to start punching numbers in. I’m not keen on punching numbers in as I’m driving, but you can do voice dial across the blue-tooth now’, C14.
One interviewee even suggested that the provision of ‘hands-free’ phone facilities by her employer was accompanied by an expectation that she would use it to make calls while driving, ‘I do [make calls while driving] and that’s why they give you hands-free on the company’, C11.
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Interviews also revealed that most drivers were selective regarding when and if they made use of their phones while driving. Factors such as the type of call, or the type of driving conditions influenced such decision-making processes. These issues are explored in a separate paper, as constraints of space prevent them being examined fully here (Author, under review).
Holley et al (2008) argued that the generally increasing knowledge intensity of work, with many workers having to use their intellectual capabilities to analyze and solve problems, was one factor making it easier for business people to work while travelling. The interview data collected provides some support for this argument, as a number of interviewees argued that driving time could be used for thinking about work. Such sentiments are summarized in the following two quotations,
‘My mental preparation I tend to do that when I’m driving. I just switch off the radio and just get ready for it, mulling over things in my mind … the driving becomes like an automatic response and you go onto auto-pilot and you’ve got the rest of your brain ticking over in the background to get ready for what you’re doing’, C7.
‘You can think about planning the next day or planning next week or solutions to problems. That type of thing. It’s good thinking time. .. because you’re in your own little environment’, C15.
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As the end of the second quotation suggests, one of the reasons why car journeys can provide good thinking time is that they provide what Urry (2007, p. 128) referred to as a ‘private cocoon’, where people have a reasonable degree of isolation from the external environment. When drivers are undertaking lengthy journeys, and when they choose not to deal with phone calls while driving, car journeys have the potential to provide people with large amounts of relatively undisturbed time which can be conducive to thinking. However, as Holley et al (2008) suggest, there is a tension between this type of time use activity, and dealing with mobile phone calls, which can interrupt, and provide a distraction from general thinking and problem solving activities.
Motorway Service Stations Buildings
Another discrete stage in the car journeys of the workers researched was the time spent stopped at motorway service stations. During such stops the drivers researched typically divided their time between going into service station buildings to make use of their facilities, and spending time in their cars. These elements of such stops are examined separately, with this section focussing on time spent within service station buildings.
Survey respondents were asked about the types of technologies used, and work tasks carried out within service stations. The data on this question is summarized in 18
Table 3. This data shows that the technologies used most frequently for work within service stations were mobile phones, followed by pen and paper, with the use of laptop computers being much less significant. However, as will be highlighted by the interview quotations below, and in the following section, the workers surveyed generally had negative opinions regarding service station buildings, and often spent more time relaxing and working in their cars. The surveys found that the two factors which inhibited their ability to work in service station was firstly noise levels, which were unpredictable and distracting, and a lack of appropriate space to work. More specifically, the survey revealed that the key reasons why laptop computers were used so little within service stations were the lack of private space to use them, the lack of appropriate desks, and a lack of access to power sockets.
Insert Table 3 about here
Within the UK there is a strong negative cultural stereotype with regard to motorway service stations (Horne 2010). Typically they are associated with low quality food, poor value for money and are generally regarded as locations that people want to avoid, or spend a limited amount of time in. This combined with their relatively homogeneous features, means they are likely to be locations that people develop no affinity with, and which they experience briefly and superficially.
The interview data collected reinforced both of these ideas, as the business travellers interviewed expressed negative views about service stations, as they
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didn’t find them to be either good places to relax in, or effective spaces in which to work. A good sense of the generally negative opinions expressed about them are highlighted in the following quotations,
‘if as part of your research somebody came up with the idea of introducing a quiet area in service stations where people could stop and do those sort of things [check email] it’d be a winner’, C7.
‘Very rarely do I take a telephone or laptop into the service area … the areas just don’t exist for you to operate privately or comfortably within the service areas’, C2.
Having said this, a number of interviewees gave examples of working while in service stations. While using laptop computers was less common than using mobile phones, a number off interviewees talked about how they occasionally combined having some food with doing some computer work. A specific example of how this was done is highlighted in the following quotation,
‘the likes of Costa Coffee and the Road Chefs, they have wireless broadband these days as well, so you could have a coffee and a bite and also do a bit of work on the computer … catch up on email primarily, because they do stack up. If you take any time off, you tend to find you’ve got loads to deal with then later on’, C14.
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The most common work-related activity undertaken within service station buildings was to use mobile phones. However, doing this was not seen as always being unproblematic, due to the lack of privacy interviewees felt existed. The problems with making phone calls, and the general lack of privacy that was perceived to exist at service stations is summarized in the following two quotations,
‘I probably wouldn’t make phone calls. I often use Little Chefs because you can get a little quiet table and you can get your laptop out, have a coffee … also I think it’s not right for other people [that I make phone calls] .. having a family meal and you don’t want to overhear loud people on the phone’, C9.
‘They’re not conducive to work. I don’t feel comfortable sat talking on a mobile phone in a public space … I always find it quite annoying when people sit shouting on the phone when other people are trying to have a break’, C11.
Part of the reason for the lack of privacy interviewees felt is because motorway service stations, like train carriages, represent locations where the public-private boundary is blurred and unclear (Urry 2007, p. 91-2). Thus, while it may be possible for people to achieve a degree of privacy in such locations, for example via sitting in a particular location away from others, ultimately such locations are public domains, and any privacy that is achieved is likely to be partial and difficult to control. As a result of the interviewees generally negative perceptions regarding service station facilities, both for working and relaxing, most spent more time in their cars, than in
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service station buildings, when they stopped at these locations. One interviewee expressed such sentiments as follows,
‘I’m not very keen on going into the cafeterias. I tend to go in, buy something and go back to my car and I eat a sandwich or drink a coffee in the car because I don’t think the cafeteria environments are very pleasant ... I’d go back to the car rather than try and sit in a café’, C6.
Thus, in understanding how business travellers spend their time while stopped at motorway service stations, it is necessary to consider what they do while sitting in their cars, which is the focus of the following section.
In Car, Parked, At Service Station
The survey and interview data both highlighted how the business travellers researched typically made more use of their car, than service station buildings, for both relaxing and working. Thus, survey responses on the extent to which different technologies were used while sitting in their cars (see Table 4) showed that while, as with service stations buildings, mobile phones and pen and paper were the most frequently used technologies, people made more significantly use of all technologies while sitting in their cars than when in service station buildings. Thus, for example, 70% of respondents said that they used mobile phones ‘quite a lot’ or ‘a great deal’ 22
while in their cars, while only 39% said the same about service station buildings (Table 3). Equally, with regards to doing paperwork, 43% said they did paperwork in their cars either ‘quite a lot’ or ‘a great deal’, while only 22% said the same about service station buildings (Tables 3 & 4). The survey also found that the factor that most facilitated people’s ability to work was the degree of privacy their cars offered, while constraints of space were the biggest factor inhibiting their ability to work. These findings were also reinforced in the interview data.
Insert Table 4 about here
Firstly, the interviews gave good insights into the type of work tasks undertaken while people were sitting in their cars when parked. This could involve a range of activities including making phone calls, checking email, or doing paperwork. The following three quotations highlight the ways in which people worked,
‘Catching up with phone calls … running the answer machine, probably downloading… If I was having 20 minutes for a cup of tea and whatever, I’d put the computer on and see if there’s anything urgent on the email that couldn’t be left till a later date. Just keeping in touch basically’, C1.
‘ ….phone clients, also checking that clients who you’re on the way to see are actually there etc., or apologising if there’ve been traffic delays and making sure that the clients are comfortable that you’re going to be late’, C12.
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‘The Blackberry is extremely useful for email particularly and for managing my diary and the telephone is used extensively as well. So actually in the car the Blackberry and the telephone are easy to use and used frequently.. What I don’t do is generally use the laptop, which would be somewhat more difficult to do and less comfortable of course’, C2.
These quotations highlight the extent to which business travellers often utilized much of the time spent in their cars when parked to communicate with remote people such as clients, or colleagues. They also highlight how stops in journeys can be used strategically to undertake communication activities that couldn’t easily be done while driving, such as checking email, or making certain types of phone call (such as those requiring access to paperwork, or which may involve dealing with sensitive issues). The following two quotations illustrate the type of decisions interviewees made regarding when certain calls should be taken,
‘What I would avoid [when driving] is what I’d call contentious telephone calls – ones where you’re dealing with a complaint or you have a complaint. Anything that was an emotive issue that would involve really getting sort of passionate or dealing with something that was complicated, then I don’t think it’s appropriate to do when you’re on the move’, C12.
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‘If it’s something that’s going to take a lot of thought, then I’ll tend to ask the customer to leave it with me and I’ll get back to them rather than try and think it through when I’m driving’, C8.
Thus, while the previous section highlighted the extent to which the business travellers surveyed made use of mobile phones while driving, this doesn’t mean that they automatically dealt with every call they received. Instead, business travellers were making constant calculations regarding which calls to take or make at which location.
The interviews also revealed the extent to which business travellers used time spent sitting in their cars when parked to rest, relax and eat. Thus, the following two interview quotations highlight how stops could be used in car journeys to allow people to rest, ‘Particularly on the Slough journey, because I start so early, I’ll probably get to Northampton services where I take the M40. I’ll stop there, have a coffee and have a power nap for about 30 or 45 minutes, but I never turn my device off though. Usually at that time of day I very rarely get any calls anyway and it’s often the device that wakes me up’, C3.
‘If I’m feeling a bit weary, I’ll quite often just pop into a services, put the seat back and have half an hour shut-eye’, C13.
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Part of the utility of cars as spaces to rest and relax in is that they provide a (relatively) private and controllable environment compared to public places such as service station restaurants. Thus, in talking about using their cars to both rest and work, interviewees talked about their cars as ‘my space’, or ‘my own bubble’. These sentiments are also made explicit in the following quotation, ‘It’s my space. I can shut the doors, the phone’s on silent and chucked on the side .. Nobody’s coming and talking to me… Peace and quiet and I’m in control’, C1.
Discussion
In general terms, the data presented has show that to have a complete understanding of how workers make use of travel time on work-related journeys it is necessary to take account not only of time spent driving, but also time spent during other stages of such journeys, for example sitting in the car when parked, or when strategic stops are made at particular locations. The paper also reinforced the findings of travel-time usage studies concerning how business travellers make use of journey time. Thus, as with Lyons et al (2007) and Holley et al (2008) a significant proportion of people’s journey time was used to carry out work-related activities. Further, as with Hislop & Axtell (2009) and Laurier (2004) even time spent driving was regularly used to simultaneously make and take mobile phone calls, especially when drivers had in-car hands free phone facilities.
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While the empirical section was structured around different journey stages, to highlight their different characteristics, the discussion is thematically organized to allow the examination of some over-arching issues. Here the focus is on two topics in particular. Firstly, the role played by business travellers in the production of (work)space on work-related journeys is examined, where the Lefebvre-inspired framework of Taylor & Spicer (2007) that was outlined earlier, is returned to. Secondly, the discussion links with the travel-time usage literature to consider the type of work activities undertaken on work-related journeys. This section examines two issues, considering not only whether the use of mobile communication technologies represents a productive use of travel time, but also whether the use of these technologies undermines the extent to which journey time can be used as an escape or refuge from the ongoing demands of work.
The Production of (Work)space
The paper began by suggesting that for mobile workers who regularly travel to and work at different locations, what constituted a workspace was any location they were able to use/adapt for work purposes, for however brief a time (Hislop & Axtell 2009). The data presented substantiated this definition of workspace, with diverse examples of how this was done including using ‘hands free’ technology to make and receive work-related mobile phone calls while driving, doing computer work in restaurants and cafes while simultaneously eating meals, using parked cars to create 27
a private and quiet space for making particular type of phone call, and using parked cars as a workspace for either doing paperwork, or working on a computer. In relation to Taylor & Spicer’s (2007) framework, this highlights the key role that the particular practices or activities undertaken by people who travel through and occupy space play in the construction of this space.
The dynamics of the processes via which (work)space was constructed within cars (either when parked, or being driven), and within service station buildings were noticeably different. This variation was due to fundamental differences in the nature of these spaces that workers/travellers had no control over, with the interior of cars being semi-private locations, while service station buildings are shared public spaces
A fundamental feature of the process via which workspace was constructed within cars was that they were relatively private spaces that drivers had a reasonable level of control over (Lyons & Urry 2005). For examples, factors that drivers generally have a large degree of control over include whether windows are open or not, the interior environment of the car (including temperature and noise levels), how they drive, where they park, and what activities they undertake while driving or sitting in a parking space. Thus, within cars, the production of workspace is a solitary activity with the particular practices undertaken by travellers being key in shaping the nature of this space. The degree of control drivers have over this space arguably
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helps explain why the car was often seen as a refuge, or cocoon which allows people to escape from the immediate travel environment.
However, the interior of cars are only semi-private locations, and the practices, or activities of other, diverse actors can play a role in shaping the degree of control that drivers have over the interior of their cars. Firstly, the (historical) activities and decisions of car designers (the practices of ‘planning’ in Taylor & Spicer’s (2007) framework) shape and constrain the activities of drivers by influencing factors such as the amount of space they have, and the degree of noise insulation they have from the external environment. For example, a lack of space within cars was shown in the surveys to be a key factor inhibiting people’s ability to work there. Thus, the design decisions of car manufacturers actively shape the way in which cars can be used as a workspace. Secondly, the activities of other road/car park users shapes the nature of the space within cars. For example, where other travellers look, the level and type of noise they make, how they drive and how/where they park can influence other people’s in-car experiences. Thirdly and finally, when people are equipped with mobile communication technologies, and have them switched on, the people who call/email them also influence the nature of people’s in-car experiences. Overall therefore, while drivers have a reasonable degree of control to shape the nature of the space within their cars, and can use it as a workspace in various ways, the nature of this space is also influenced by the practice or activities of others.
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While the degree of control that travellers have over the character of in-car space is limited and constrained by the action of others, the degree of control that business travellers have over the production of workspace with service stations is significantly lower. This is because service stations are shared public spaces, and the nature of the space within service stations is shaped by the quantity and character of the other people who occupy it at the same time as business travellers (such as other travellers - business or non-business, service station workers, and even occasionally academics conducting research into business travel). The practices of such people are equally as significant as those of business travellers in shaping the character of the space within a service station, and is something that business travellers have no control over. For example, a quiet service station café could be quickly transformed into a noisy location by the arrival of a coach party.
One striking feature of the interview quotations relating to the time people spent within service stations is the sensitivity displayed to the fact that they are shared public spaces, and that people take account of this in how they behave. For example, not making phone calls in a restaurant due to concerns regarding a lack of privacy or that doing so may disturb others. Thus, the shared nature of service station buildings means that rather than talk about how the practices of business travellers creates workspace it is more accurate to talk about how the space within service stations is co-produced by the dynamic interaction between the various people who simultaneously occupy the same space. In passing, it is also worth highlighting how the historical ‘planning’ (Taylor & Spicer 2007) activities of the designers of service
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stations (in terms of factors such as whether people have access to power sockets to plug in laptops, or dedicated space is provided to business travellers) was also shown to play a role in shaping and constraining the extent to which and ways in which business travellers were able to create a workspace while within service stations.
Travel Time Usage
In terms of travel time usage, and the particular type of work activities undertaken by business travellers on work-related car journeys, both the interview quotations presented and survey analysis highlighted how, during all stages of the journeys examined, the most common work task undertaken by the business travellers researched was use mobile communication technologies (mobile phones, laptops, mobile email devices) to communicate with others. This arguably does suggest that the workers did experience a pressure to provide the type of ‘perpetual contact’ articulated by Katz & Aakhus (2002). Further, the extent to which they continually checked for and responded to phone calls and emails does support Green’s (2002) suggestion that the use of mobile communication technologies can facilitate an intensification of people’s communicative interactions. Arguably, the fact that the workers researched often spent much of their working days travelling alone, and being physically remote from relevant clients and colleagues suggests that their ongoing efforts to continually communicate while travelling were shaped by a need to keep in touch and manage their ‘absent presence’ (Gergen 2002). Thus, while not 31
being able to be continually physically co-present with such people, their communicative activities allowed them to maintain a virtual co-presence with relevant others.
However, whether the workers’ communication behaviours were due to strong organizational pressure to be continuously available while travelling, or due to workers’ personal decisions and choices to compensate for not being physically copresent with relevant people is unclear and would require further investigation. Two other issues raised by this finding is whether such communication activities represent a productive use of people’s travel time (Holley et al 2008), and whether these communication activities undermine the extent to which travel time can be utilized as a refuge or escape from the ongoing demands of work (Jain & Lyons 2008). Each of these issues is examined separately.
Arguably, whether using travel time to continually communicate with other represents a productive use of travel time is debateable. While this activity has the benefit of allowing business travellers to stay in touch with important others while travelling (such as colleagues and clients) such activity may simultaneously undermine other positive, productive aspects of travel time. Holley et al (2008) argued that one potential benefit of travel time was that it may facilitate levels of creativity by removing the day-to-day demands of work and providing relatively undisturbed thinking time. Thus, constantly using mobile communication technologies may inhibit this type of activity. Secondly, Holley et al (2008)
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suggested that another potential benefit of travel time was that the break from the ongoing demands of work it offered may facilitate rest and recovery. However, using travel time to constantly communicate may also undermine this potential positive side effect it may have. Thus simultaneously travelling/driving and using mobile communication technologies (such as hands free phones when driving) is likely to undermine the extent to which people experience such journeys as restful and relaxing. Finally, it is also useful to acknowledge that travel time could be used to carry out work activities even if people do not possess mobile communication technologies. For example, not only could travel time be used as ‘thinking time; but it could also be used to manually process paperwork. Whether carrying out this type of activity represents a more productive use of travel time compared to constantly making or taking phone calls is an open question.
As outlined earlier, Jain & Lyons (2008) suggested that mobile communication technologies had the potential to undermine one of the potentially positive facets of work-related travel, the extent to which they provide an escape from the ongoing demands of work and/or family. The data presented here suggests that this is definitely the case. The data presented suggests that engaging in work-related communication activities, whether by phone or email, was something that the business travellers continually strived to do, on all stages of the journeys they undertook. Thus, for them, undertaking such journeys did not involve escaping from such commitments, and instead meant that travellers had to continually deal engage in work-related communication while simultaneously travelling.
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Lyons & Urry (2005, p. 265) suggest that being in a car provides ‘a sanctuary, a zone of protection, however slender, between oneself and the surrounding transport environment’. While this may be partially true, what being inside a car doesn’t project people from is incoming calls or emails. The only way time spent within cars could provide a refuge from this type of demand would be if people switched off their mobile communication devices. However, the evidence suggests that people did not typically do this. In fact, arguably, the opposite was the case, with people typically keeping these devices on as much as possible, and using them whenever deemed to be necessary. This was also the case when people were actually driving, especially for those who had hands-free in-car phone facilities. The quotation by C3 presented earlier even suggest that his phone was kept on while he was resting and sleeping, so as to not miss any potentially important calls. Interesting questions raised by this issue include the reasons why people were so active in using journey time to communicate, whether there were formal organizational pressures and/or expectation to behave in this way, and whether switching off a mobile communication technology, or ignoring a call represents a form of resistance. Such questions are beyond the scope of this paper, but point towards important topics worthy of further exploration.
In conclusion, it is worth acknowledging some limitations of the study on which this paper is based. Firstly, the data sample was very localized, being based on a survey distributed at one service station. Thus, further research of drivers using other
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locations would need to be conducted to establish the generalizability of the findings presented here. Secondly, in understanding the behaviours of business drivers undertaking work-related car journeys, the data is centrally focussed on drivers who use motorways, which may be different from the behaviour of workers who make other types of work-related journey, for example urban-centred travellers whose work may be focussed within a relatively small geographic area. For example, one of the arguments made by Laurier (2004) was that motorways represented a distinctive type of road system and that the way people drive on motorways is quite different from how they drive on other types of road. Thus, to provide further insights into the behaviour of workers on other types of workrelated journey further research is necessary.
Despite these limitations the paper makes a useful contribution to knowledge by adding to the existing, somewhat partial body of knowledge on the travel-time usage behaviours of car-based business travellers (Hislop & Axtell 2009, Laurier & Philo 2003, Laurier 2004), through presenting detailed, rich qualitative insights into the travel behaviours of a diverse sample of mobile workers who travelled through the English Midlands, examining not only what they do while actually driving, but also when making stops on journeys.
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References Author (under review) Hanging on the Telephone? Self-Reported Mobile Phone Use Patterns Among UK-based Business Drivers, Transportation Research F: Transport Psychology. Axtell, C. Hislop, D. and Whittaker, S. (2008) Mobile Technologies in Mobile Spaces: Findings from the Context of Train Travel, International Journal of HumanComputer Studies, 66, pp. 902-915 Brusque, C. and Alauzet, A. (2008) Analysis of the Individual Factors Affecting Mobile Phone Use While Driving in France: Socio-Demographic Characteristics, Car and Phone Use in Professional and Private Contexts, Accident Analysis and Prevention, 40, pp. 35-44. Felstead, A. Jewson, N. and Walters, S. (2005) Changing Places of Work (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan). Ferguson, H. (2009) Driven to Care: The Car, Automobility and Social Work, Mobilities, 4, pp. 275-293. Fortunati, L. (2002) The Mobile Phone: Towards New Categories and Social Relations, Information, communication and Society, 5, pp. 513-528. Gergen, K. (2002) The Challenge of Absent Presence. In J. Katz & M. Aakhus (Eds), Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance (pp. 227-241). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Green, N. (2002) On the Move: Technology, Mobility, and the Mediation of Social Time and Space, The Information Society, 18, pp. 281-292.
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Hislop, D., and Axtell, C. (2009) To Infinity and Beyond? Workspace and the MultiLocation Worker, New Technology, Work and Employment, 24, pp. 60-75. Holley, D. Jain, J. and Lyons, G. (2008) Understanding Business Travel Time in its Place in the Working Day, Time and Society, 1, pp. 27-46. Horne, A. (2010) Service Culture, The Observer Magazine, Saturday 2nd May, p. 5053. Jain, J., and Lyons, G. (2008) The Gift of Travel time, Journal of Transport Geography, 16, pp. 81-89. Katz, J. and Aakhus, M. (2002) Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Lassen, C. (2006) Aeromobility and Work, Environment and Planning A, 38, pp. 301312. Laurier, E. (2004) Doing Office Work on the Motorway, Theory, Culture and Society, 21, pp. 261-277. Laurier, E. and Philo, G. (2003) The Region in the Boot: Mobilising Lone subjects and Multiple Objects, Environment and Planning D, 21, pp. 85-106. Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell). Licoppe, C. (2004) ’Connected’ Presence: The Emergence of a New Repertoire for Managing Social Relationships in a Changing communication Technoscape, Environment and Planning D, 22, pp. 135-156. Lyons, G. and Urry, J. (2005) Travel Time Use in the Information Age, Transportation Research Part A, 39, pp. 257-276.
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Lyons, G. Jain, J. and Holley, D. (2007) The Use of Travel Time by Rail Passengers in Great Britain, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 41, pp. 107120. Middleton, C. and Cukier, W. (2006) Is mobile email Functional or Dysfunctional? Two Perspectives on Mobile Email Usage, European Journal of Information Systems, 15, pp. 252-260. Taylor, S. and Spicer, A. (2007) Time for Space: A Narrative Review of Research on Organizational Spaces, International Journal of Management Reviews, 9, pp. 325-346. Orlikowski, W. (2007) Socio-Material Practices: Exploring Technology at Work, Organization Studies, 28, pp. 1435-1448. Urry, J. (2007) Mobilities (Cambridge: Polity). Watts, L. (2008) The Art and Craft of Train Travel, Social and Cultural Geography, 9, pp. 711-726 White, K. Hyde, M. Walsh, S. and Watson, B. (2010) Mobile Phone Use While Driving: An Investigation of the Beliefs Influencing Drivers’ Hands-Free and Handheld Phone Use, Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 13, pp. 9-20.
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Table 1: Interviewee Age, Gender and Occupation
Interviewee Code
Age
Gender
Occupation
C1
47
M
Service Engineer
C2
46
M
Operations Director
C3
43
M
Sales Manager
C4
60
M
Sales Manager
C5
59
M
Inspector/auditor (construction industry)
C6
47
F
Trainer
C7
41
M
Engineering Director
C8
57
M
Environmental Consultant
C9
57
M
Regional Manager
C10
40
F
Manager
C11
38
F
Regional Health & Safety Manager
C12
54
M
Financial Advisor
C13
48
M
Regional Sales Manager
C14
44
M
Service Manager
C15
57
M
Technical Sales Manager
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Table 2: Survey Statistics on Mobile Phone use While Driving
Answer mobile phone while
Conflict between driving &
driving for work (number of
dealing with calls (number of
respondents)
respondents)
Never
20% (29)
22% (32)
A little
9% (14)
22% (33)
Occasionally
17 % (25)
31% (46)
Quite a lot
27 % (40)
18% (27)
A great deal
28 % (41)
7 % (11)
40
Table 3: Extent to which Various Technologies are used for Work Purposes within Service Station Buildings (number of respondents listed in brackets)
Never
A Little
Occasionally
Quite a Lot
A Great Deal
Mobile Phone
15% (21)
19% (27)
28% (39)
28% (39)
11% (16)
Pen & Paper
30% (43)
19% (27)
30% (41)
13% (19)
9% (12)
Laptop
50% (71)
12% (17)
26% (37)
7% (10)
4% (6)
Blackberry
67% (91)
7% (10)
7% (10)
13% (18)
4% (6)
PDA/Palmtop
76% (97)
7% (9)
7% (9)
6% (7)
5% (6)
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Table 4: Extent to which Various Technologies are used for Work Purposes While sitting in the car when parked (number of respondents listed in brackets)
Never
A Little
Occasionally
Quite a lot
A Great Deal
Mobile Phone
4% (5)
4% (6)
21% (31)
35% (51)
35% (51)
Pen & Paper
5% (7)
23% (34)
28% (41)
26% (39)
17% (25)
Laptop
36% (51)
20% (29)
24% (34)
14% (20)
6% (9)
Blackberry
64% (84)
3% (4)
5% (6)
18% (24)
11% (14)
PDA/Palmtop
73% (90)
2% (3)
3% (4)
10% (12)
12% (15)
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