McGill University
OP-16: Student Commute Modal Split

The TRAM research group conducted a large-scale online survey during the month of March and early April 2013 in order to collect information on the travel behaviours, motivations, and perceptions of the McGill community. The target population was all McGill students, staff, and faculty. The goal was to obtain a representative sample for these different types of people, as well as for the different McGill campuses. The TRAM research group designed and conducted the survey with the collaboration of faculty specialists in transportation planning and travel behaviour, members of the McGill Office of Sustainability, as well as Daniel Schwartz, from the McGill IT Services department. A series of revisions and pilot testing were undertaken, based on feedback from these collaborators, before disseminating the survey to the McGill community (refer to Appendix I for the full survey). The survey was approved by the Office of the Provost, as well as by the Research Ethics Board Office. The survey was carefully designed to minimize the potential for survey abandonment by respondents. For example, the survey included a question filtering mechanism which modified the series of questions based on the respondent’s previous answers. Also, some questions were left optional but survey progression required answering others, ensuring that the most important information was provided.

Source: TRAM Survey - Winter & Summer 2013 Avg. Modal Splits by Demographic (Student) Responses from 2013 does not provide details re. single occupancy drivers, but nevertheless shows that 43.8% of students bike/walk, 48.2% use transit and 8% through motorized vehicles. Since only 8% were said to be traveling alone by car (on average for winter and summer 2013), 92% are using "more sustainable modes of transport" as defined by STARS.