Two wave household panel, 3,240 matched respondents

Human geography research poster example

A two wave household panel measuring what a rail extension did to the commute, laid out as an A0 landscape board with one wide hero figure. The figure plots commute time against distance from the nearest station, so the saving and the point where it disappears are both visible at once.

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The whole board

The poster at full size, exactly as it prints. Every number, citation and caption on it was written for this example, so the layout is being judged on real content.

MU
What a rail extension did to the commute: 3,240 matched respondents across twelve suburbs
N. Aldridge ¹, Q. Bello ¹ ², R. Stavros ²
1 School of Geography and Planning, Marchmont University · 2 Urban Mobility Observatory, Marchmont University
Abstract
A 14 kilometre rail extension opened in 2025 with five new stations. We surveyed the same households before and after, in 2023 and 2026, across twelve suburbs, five of which gained a station and seven of which did not, and matched 3,240 respondents across the two waves on household, not just on suburb. Mean door to door commute time in the five station suburbs fell from 47 minutes to 38, a saving of 9 minutes, while the seven comparison suburbs moved from 44 to 43. The saving is not evenly spread: it is 9 minutes for households within a kilometre of a new station and disappears beyond about five kilometres, where the walk or the feeder bus consumes what the train returns. Rail mode share in the station suburbs rose from 14% to 29% of trips, almost all of it taken from car driver trips, which fell from 61% to 47%. Bus share fell three points over the same period, because eleven routes were shortened to feed the new stations, and 214 respondents recorded a longer commute in 2026 than in 2023.
METHODS
Design. Two wave household panel survey, 2023 before opening and 2026 after, same addresses.
Sample. 3,240 respondents matched across both waves in twelve suburbs, 1,420 of them in station suburbs.
Measure. Door to door commute minutes for the most recent work trip, plus mode for that trip.
Distance. Straight line distance from the household address to the nearest station, six bands.
Analysis. Within household change, so a respondent is compared with themselves rather than with a neighbour.
9 minutes
saved on average in the five station suburbs
95% CI 7.4 to 10.6, from 47 to 38 minutes, 1,420 matched respondents
9 minutes saved in station suburbs, 95% CI 7.4 to 10.6
Comparison suburbs moved 1 minute, interval crosses zero
Saving disappears beyond about five kilometres
Rail share 14% to 29%, car driver 61% to 47%
2023
2026
0 to 1 km
1 to 2
2 to 3
3 to 5
5 to 8
Over 8
020406080
Figure 1. Mean commute minutes by distance from the nearest station, both survey waves.
Source: matched household panel, 3,240 respondents, twelve suburbs.
Results
Within household, commute time in the five station suburbs fell by a mean of 9 minutes, from 47 to 38, with a 95% confidence interval of 7.4 to 10.6. In the seven comparison suburbs the same households moved from 44 to 43 minutes, a change of one minute that its own interval crosses zero. The saving tracks distance to the station closely. Households within a kilometre saved 9 minutes, those in the one to two kilometre band saved 8, the two to three band saved 6, and beyond five kilometres the saving is 2 minutes and then 1, which is inside the noise of a self reported trip time. Mode share moved in step. Across the station suburbs, rail rose from 14% to 29% of commute trips, car driver fell from 61% to 47%, bus fell from 18% to 15% and bicycle and walking together rose from 7% to 9%. The rail gain therefore came almost entirely out of car driving rather than out of the bus network, which is the opposite of what the pre opening modelling assumed and is worth stating because the same modelling is being used for the next extension. Two things this design cannot settle. The first is who moved in. Ten per cent of the matched households had changed at least one working adult between waves, and dropping them changes the headline saving by under a minute, but a suburb that gains a station also gains new residents who never answered the 2023 survey and whose commutes are therefore invisible here. The second is what happened to the people whose journey the extension made worse: 214 respondents reported a longer commute in 2026 than in 2023, most of them bus users on routes that were shortened to feed the new stations rather than to run their old length. Their median increase was 6 minutes, and 62 of the 214 live more than five kilometres from any of the five new stations, which is the band where the extension returned nothing and the bus network was cut anyway. A planning process that reports the mean saving and not that figure is reporting half the result. The third caveat is measurement: commute time here is self reported for the most recent work trip, and self report compresses long journeys, so the 9 minute saving is more likely to be understated for the outer bands than overstated for the inner ones. Cited on this board: Ferris and Loh 2025, Rail extensions and within household commute change, Journal of Transport Geography 58, 220 to 244; Stavros 2024, Panel attrition in two wave mobility surveys, Urban Data Methods 9, 71 to 88; Aldridge and Bello 2026, Feeder bus reconfiguration and the losers from a new line, Marchmont Mobility Papers 2026-05.

Block by block

What each block on the board is for, in the order a reader walks it.

Title band, three authors and a QR code
The title states the change and the sample: what a rail extension did to the commute, across 3,240 matched respondents in twelve suburbs. Three authors carry superscripts over two affiliations, with the QR code at the right of the band.
Abstract
A 14 kilometre extension with five new stations opened in 2025. The same households were surveyed in 2023 and 2026 across twelve suburbs. Commute time in station suburbs fell from 47 to 38 minutes while comparison suburbs moved from 44 to 43.
Methods as a labelled protocol
Five entries: a two wave household panel at the same addresses, 3,240 matched respondents of whom 1,420 are in station suburbs, door to door commute minutes and mode for the most recent work trip, six distance bands from the nearest station, and within household change as the estimator.
Hero figure
Mean commute minutes by distance from the nearest station, both waves on the same axes across six bands from under a kilometre to over eight. The lines converge as distance grows, which is the finding the board is built around.
The headline number
One key number block reads nine minutes saved on average in the five station suburbs, with the detail line carrying the 95% confidence interval of 7.4 to 10.6, the 47 to 38 minute move, and the 1,420 matched respondents it rests on.
Results
One wide results block carries the band by band savings, the mode share shift from 14% to 29% rail and 61% to 47% car driver, the 214 respondents whose commute got worse, and the three caveats including self report compression at the outer bands.
Conclusion points and citations
Four checked points close the board: the nine minute saving with its interval, the comparison suburbs, the five kilometre limit and the mode shift. The board carries no separate reference block, so its three citations sit at the end of the results text.

What makes this board work

Distance is the x axis, not the suburb

Plotting commute time against distance from the nearest station in six bands shows the saving and the band where it runs out on one figure. Twelve suburb pairs would have shown the same data as a list and answered neither question.

The comparison group is on the board

Seven suburbs without a new station moved from 44 to 43 minutes, an interval that crosses zero. Without that line the nine minute saving could be anything that happened between 2023 and 2026.

The losers are counted

Two hundred and fourteen respondents reported a longer commute, most of them bus users on routes shortened to feed the new stations, with a median increase of six minutes. A board that reports only the mean saving reports half the result.

Questions people ask

What goes on a human geography research poster?

The intervention or change being studied, the spatial unit, how the sample was drawn and matched across waves, the outcome with an interval, a comparison group, and the distributional result. Spatial work should show the gradient rather than the average wherever the gradient is the finding.

Why not put a map on the poster?

Only put a map on if the map carries the argument. Here the argument is about distance from a station, and a line chart against distance bands shows that far more precisely than a map with twelve shaded suburbs. A map that just locates the study area is decoration at A0 prices.

How wide should a hero figure be?

On this A0 landscape board the hero figure takes about a third of the canvas and the full height of the right hand side, which is enough for six labelled bands and two series. A figure that has to be approached to be read is not a hero figure, it is a table.

What text size works on a landscape A0 board?

Body text here is near 24 pixels on the 2340 by 1656 canvas, about 12 millimetres printed, readable at a metre. Landscape boards tempt you into long lines, so keep any single column under about 90 characters wide or the eye loses the line return.

Can I print this at 300 DPI?

The export doubles the working canvas, so A0 landscape leaves at 4680 by 3312 pixels, roughly 100 DPI at full size. That is the normal resolution for a poster read from a metre. Bleed, crop marks and CMYK are not produced, so ask your printer for RGB.

How do I fit a long results section on a poster?

Use a layout that gives you one large results block rather than several small ones, as this board does, and write it in paragraphs a reader can enter at any point. Put the numbers that matter in the key number block and the figure so the prose is optional.

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Sources

Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .