Netnography offers a unique lens for understanding the discussions on the London public transport subreddit in terms of defining efficiency and analysing the factors that affect it. This method involved a deep, interpretive analysis of the language as well as the practices of this online community. Netnography revealed multifaceted insights, emphasizing the importance of certain topics and their impact on users' perceptions and experiences. Such as the main five factors found were: Reliability, Frequency, Accessibility, Strikes, and Software/Technology.

 

In identifying the correct community to do the Netnography in we explored four different platforms: X, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Through this, we found on LinkedIn the majority of the posts were from people connected or worked for the TFL which brought in bias. From Facebook and X we found very few points surrounding efficiency specifically in how people define efficiency. The comments were more around negative anger towards the transport network without very little specificity. On Reddit being a forum platform allowed us to discover a community that explored what efficiency meant in an over 100-page forum conversation. From this, we took a small sample of 6 pages to do the Netnography on. This was so that we could gain breadth with enough data but also dial into the specificity of the points being made.

Netnography identifies key themes that are central to users' experiences: Reliability, Frequency, Accessibility, Strikes, and Software/Technology. These areas differentiate themselves because of their interconnected influence on the overall efficiency of the transport system. Reliability, for example, is seen as having a greater impact on efficiency than train capacity. This is because capacity concerns are situational, only becoming a problem during peak times or service disruptions. In contrast to this, reliability affects users' daily experiences and trust in the system. When the service is unreliable users complain that it affects the efficiency of the system. Whereas when the service is reliable, users praise the system and value the efficiency improvement. Contrasting this to capacity no comments were talking about the positive impact of a train that was under capacity in the context of efficiency. This shows the value and expectation of different factors and the greater importance users have over certain factors.

 

Additionally, the analysis provides insights into solutions for mitigating negative impacts which spouts of the interconnectedness of the main five factors. An example is the high frequency of transport services. Increasing the frequency of transport can improve the effect engineering works have on timings. For example, if engineering works need to work on half the fleet that would double the wait time for the user. This would mean if a normal wait time between transport is 8 minutes it would now be 16 minutes. If they were to increase the frequency of transport to every 5 minutes, this would reduce the adverse effect from a  potential 16-minute delay to only 10 minutes. This would reduce the effect of engineering works while also improving transport while also tackling capacity issues. This principle applies similarly to issues of reliability; a more frequent service means a shorter wait time for the next vehicle in case of delays or breakdowns, thereby enhancing user experience and perception of efficiency. Although by doing these running costs would increase due to the increase in transport requirements, these costs would need to be offset which could require a fare increase. Ways to mitigate this would be around creating more efficient routes that would take less time for the transport to complete thus reducing wait times. 

 

Through the Netnography, we have understood that London public transport users value aspects directly influencing their daily commutes, such as Reliability, Frequency, Accessibility, Strikes, and Software/Technology, over less frequent concerns like capacity and others. This method offers transport authorities and policymakers a nuanced understanding of public sentiment. This guides them in the method of prioritization over improvements. By analysing the organic discussions on platforms like Reddit, Netnography emerges as a powerful tool in shaping user-centric transport policies and initiatives. As well as defining the factors that are of most importance to the users when trying to get the greatest efficiency out of London’s public transport.