Survey Results—2

Thanks again to everyone who completed the 2011 Omnibuses survey. About a fortnight ago, I published some qualitative results regarding reader dislikes. Now’s the time to go all quantitative, with the survey’s main results. For some of the questions, I have data back to 2009. Please click on the images to enlarge them.

How can you help Omnibuses

This was a new question for 2011. Half of respondents weren’t sure whether they could help or not. But that’s OK because I am pleased to say a quarter of you answered that you could submit an occasional article. Thank you. I can now look forward to semi-blogging retirement : )

How do readers rate the Omnibuses Blog

This year, one person felt that the blog was “OK”. This was an increase of one over the previous two years. Consistency, however, continued across the three years as, mercifully, no one thought that Omnibuses was “poor”. The proportion of people who responded who felt that the blog was “excellent” had increased year on year, to 58 per cent.

How often you read the Omnibuses Blog

75 per cent of readers who responded to the survey join the blog daily. This is also consistent across the three years of surveys. About 20 per cent read two or three times a week.

What’s your interest

You will recall I asked whether readers were (a) enthusiasts, (b) worked in the industry, or (c) both. Summing the results, 82 per cent of respondents felt that they were enthusiasts, up from 71 per cent in 2009 and 79 per cent in 2010.

Many of these also work in the industry. Nearly half of readers (46 per cent) do (or did) so, whether enthusiasts or not, up from 34 per cent in 2009 and 43 per cent in 2010. See graph above.

Is Omnibuses unbiased

This was a new question for 2011. 98 per cent of respondents felt Omnibuses was unbiased. This comprised 72 per cent who felt that the blog was “usually balanced but with the odd imbalance or biased view” and 26 per cent who felt the blog was always unbiased.

How is Omnibuses rated against other transport blogs

A growing number felt that Omnibuses was their favourite transport blog. This now amounts to over 40 per cent of respondents. As this number has increased, the proportion of those who declared the OB was better than other transport blogs has decreased, albeit marginally, from 40 per cent (2009) to 35 per cent (2011).

Length of posts

There was a change of one percentage point from 2010 (when we first asked this question) to 97 per cent of respondents felt that the length of post was about right.

Where you live

The proportion hasn’t changed much over the last three years. About half the readers declared they lived in southern England (however that’s defined), including Dorset. The proportion reading from Dorset has reduced by one percentage point from nine in 2009 & 2010.

Dorset Bus Blog

We asked, “Do you think by moving most Dorset posts to the Dorset Bus Blog that we’ve managed to overcome previous perceptions of a southern bias?” I was grateful for a written comment that corrected me by saying that this was previously less of a “bias” and more of a “focus”.

28 per cent of respondents weren’t sure. 12 per cent disagreed but 61 per cent agreed. Issues about Dorset are expounded further in Survey Results—1.

Your age

Roughly, 33 per cent of people here are between 18 & 35; 33 per cent third over 50; 25 per cent between 25 & 50; and about five per cent under 18. Though the under 18s have recovered a little since 2010; the percentage was nine in 2009.

Community and Stake

New for 2011, 55 per cent of respondents felt that the blog has “developed a strong online community & following” with virtually all the remainder unsure. Only a handful felt there the statement about a strong community was false.

We also asked whether readers felt that they had a stake in this blog. 39 per cent felt they had. 32 per cent felt otherwise. The remainder weren’t sure.