The BTE has examined the arrival of inner-city customers and their preferred means of arrival. According to a survey from the first two weeks of March in a total of ten German cities, 54 percent of the city center visitors surveyed came to the city by car, 31 percent by public transport and ten percent on foot or by bicycle. Car users stay the longest and spend the most.
There were strong deviations depending on where the visitors lived: while 68 percent of external guests arrived by car and only 25 percent by public transport, visitors based in the city only used their own car to 40 percent and at least too 37 percent public transport. For city dwellers, traveling by bike (12 percent) and on foot (9 percent) is also significant.
Purchase rate correlates positively with accessibility by car
A look at the purchase rate also shows how important accessibility by car is for retailers in the cities. This was by far the highest among car customers at 48 percent. The purchase rate was significantly lower when traveling by public transport (38 percent), by bicycle (37 percent) and on foot (33 percent).
Those arriving by car usually enjoy the visit to the city as a community experience and travel in pairs (two thirds), with 17 percent even having three or more people in the car. On the other hand, individual travel dominates with the other means of transport, namely for bicycles at 67 percent, on foot at 57 percent and for buses and trains at least 48 percent.
“What is decisive for retail, however, is the realization that car users spend an above-average amount of time in the cities and shop more. After all, a quarter stay at least three hours, almost a third then buy at least four items in the textile and shoe trade. In contrast, 94 percent of public transport customers stay for a maximum of two hours and then buy a maximum of three items. The corresponding values for customers who traveled on foot or by bicycle were similarly below average,” summarizes the BTE.
In conclusion, the BTE states that the accessibility of the (inner) cities with one’s own car must also be guaranteed in the future in order to protect the economic basis of the textile and clothing trade and thus also the function of the inner cities and their financing as a place of encounter and secure culture.
At the same time, an expansion of local public transport is necessary, but the BTE warns that it cannot completely replace the needs of car users for capacity reasons alone. Especially customers from the surrounding area cannot switch to bus and train for logistical reasons.
“Politicians in particular in the big cities and regional centers must be reminded that they can not only make transport policies for their own citizens, but that their city, including local trade, also has a supply function for the surrounding area by law,” he concludes BTE.