An exemplar scenario Peter
A teenaged boy, faces a perplexing situation. Most weeks, he travels on the local train service from Monkseaton, on England’s north-east coast, to Newcastle upon Tyne’s Haymarket station, tours the shops of interest and then makes a return journey. His usual strategy is to buy a ‘Daysaver’ ticket allowing him to travel in both directions on the day it is purchased. On this occasion, however, the scenario is slightly different. He is again to go from Monkseaton to Haymarket but, rather than return home entirely by train as normal, he will travel only three stops and disembark at Ilford Road, where he will be meeting his uncle, Paul. Paul will bring Peter home by car in the evening. Intent on travelling as cheaply as possible, Peter finds himself having to make a difficult decision. Will it be less expensive to opt for his usual ‘Daysaver’ or should he buy a single ticket to Haymarket and then, when he has finished his visit to the shops, purchase another that entitles him to travel to Ilford Road?
Peter knows on arriving at Monkseaton station in advance of his first journey the cost of a ‘Daysaver’ ticket but he has no idea of the price of an ordinary ticket from Haymarket to Ilford Road. He could ring the relevant travel firm but he is not carrying his mobile phone. The stations themselves are unmanned so there are no staff whom Peter can consult. He comes to his decision after using an inferential information seeking strategy. Realising that Haymarket and Ilford Road lie within the same travel zone, Peter theorises that the cost of a ticket which authorises him to go from the former to the latter should be the same as that for a ticket from Monkseaton to Shiremoor since these stations, too, lie within one zone, and, as he is currently standing at Monkseaton station, finding outthis information from an automatic ticket machine poses no problem. Ultimately, he is able to conclude that the price of a ‘Daysaver’ will be less than the total expense of the other option and he takes the appropriate action. On arriving at Haymarket, Peter checks the cost of a single ticket to Ilford Road and discovers that his decision was well justified.
The nature of inferential information behaviour