It is a well-known fact that most holiday makers and businessmen do not enjoy the travelling part of the trips they make. If people were able to snap their fingers in order to be automatically transferred to their destination, then most would. However, we are stuck with relying on various modes of transport to get us from A to B. A UK research from the beginning of the year shed light on which of these particular modes are the least stressful and allow passengers to arrive at their destinations having experienced the least amount of worry.
With the aid of digital blood monitors, four women embarked on the research organized by Leger Holidays and TTG using plane, Eurostar trains, cars and coaches to get from the UK to Disneyland in Paris. They measured their blood pressure rates at various times of the journey and came to the conclusion that using the coach is in fact the least stressful experience. The authors believe that coach passengers are more relaxed than users of the other modes of transport.
This may surprise those who were expecting quicker air travel to provide more comfort. In fact, air travel turned out to be the second most stressful way of travelling. This coincides with other UK surveys which have indicated that 77% of passengers feel stressed, rushed or worried at airports, especially those with children and pensioners. It was revealed that many, particularly from central England, have obsessive tendencies such as checking travel documents at least four times before take off. 57% of passengers admitted being worried about missing a flight or being late.
Using privately owned vehicles rolled up in third place of the stressful league yet the gold medal for stress less travelling goes to the coach. It is rather logical as waiting times are rare, passengers tend to sleep and changing is also rare. Thus, for relaxing and carefree journeys, the coach seems to be the way forward.
Huw Williams, Marketing Director at Leger Holidays, said: “We appreciate that to make this absolutely scientific, we need to add in more factors, such as testing a much larger sample size over more holiday experiences. However, what this does for us is provide a good indication of some of the more general factors.”
“For example, the results indicate that for the participant travelling by coach the most stressful point was just prior to the journey – perhaps finding travel documents and waiting for the coach to arrive – but once on board the traveller became consistently more relaxed,” he adds.
The motorcoach industry accounts for 631,000,000 passenger trips annually in the United States and Canada. Each full motorcoach has the potential of removing 55 autos from the highway. That’s millions of cars not driven annually, saving fuel, cutting emissions, reducing congestion, and maybe even saving a penguin.