Soft measures to shift modality
(2021) In Bulletin - Lund University, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Technology and Society- Abstract
- Traffic accumulated by cars is responsible for considerable problems in our cities. The problem is partly about the negative effects on human health due to harmful particulate emissions, noise, traffic accidents and sedentary lifestyles, partly about the space it occupies, which leads to congestion, and the fact that valuable land is taken up by road infrastructure and parking lots. In a bigger perspective, car traffic also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions that fuel climate change.
At the same time, the car is ingrained in our way of life and a necessity for many people's lives to function. Politicians are therefore generally reluctant to limit car use, and as a result, transport planners find it difficult to enforce measures... (More) - Traffic accumulated by cars is responsible for considerable problems in our cities. The problem is partly about the negative effects on human health due to harmful particulate emissions, noise, traffic accidents and sedentary lifestyles, partly about the space it occupies, which leads to congestion, and the fact that valuable land is taken up by road infrastructure and parking lots. In a bigger perspective, car traffic also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions that fuel climate change.
At the same time, the car is ingrained in our way of life and a necessity for many people's lives to function. Politicians are therefore generally reluctant to limit car use, and as a result, transport planners find it difficult to enforce measures that lead to a significant reduction in car traffic. Attempts are being made with soft measures that encourage people to walk, cycle and take public transport. These measures can, for instance, be to inform about alternatives to car use, marketing new cycle routes, and offering free trial periods with public transport. So far, it has proved difficult to sufficiently evaluate these measures, which has led to scepticism about their usefulness. At the same time, we need to know more about what it is that motivates modal shifts for different groups. Thus, more knowledge about soft measures is needed.
Innovations in the form of smartphones and electric bicycles (e-bikes) have opened new opportunities for soft measures, both in terms of evaluation of these and the potential to influence car use. Furthermore, previous research has shown that it is important to target soft measures and adapt information and marketing to specific target groups, also called segmentation. Against this background, this thesis (including five individual papers) has examined smartphones, e-bikes, and marketing. These three elements have been used in variation to investigate motivation to reduce car use in favour of walking, cycling and public transport, segmenting and targeting, as well as evaluation of soft measures.
Regarding the possibility of smartphone applications to influence travel behaviour,
explored in the first paper, a review of previous research showed that there is potential but that too few studies have been conducted to be able to draw any general conclusions. The paper found that applications need to be customised to the user, provide relevant information and feedback about the user’s behaviour, create a commitment towards its use, and have a user-friendly design. The second paper presented a process evaluation of a project where an application was developed to facilitate sustainable business travel. However, the study showed several weaknesses with the application and the difficulty in evaluating the effect of such a soft measure, which gave lessons about both study design and the development of applications and their implementation in organisations.
In the third paper, we found that marketing for sustainable travel is more motivating if it is aimed at the collective rather than the individual, and contains altruistic messages linked to the environment and health. The respondents’ stated motivation to reduce car use reflected their current car use and attitude towards the environment and various means of transport. This underlines the importance of adapting marketing to the target group. The fourth paper showed that one’s morality towards the climate has a significant impact on the motivation to reduce car use, but habits, travel time and attitudes towards car and bicycle use also play a role. Such factors differ between gender, age, level of education and between urban and rural areas and may be important for the segmentation used for soft measures.
The results from the fifth paper showed that e-bikes have exciting potential to replace the car and contribute to more sustainable travel behaviours. In a field experiment where the participants consisted of frequent drivers, car travel measured in distance decreased by an average of 37% as a result of the participants gaining access to their respective e-bike. The share of cycling of total travel increased by just over 20% on average. The participants measured their travel behaviour and answered survey questions using their smartphones, which contributed to high data quality. Both the effect evaluation of the use of e-bikes and the use of smartphones to measure travel behaviour make a novel and important contribution to the research field on soft transport measures, and the application of these in practice.
The thesis concludes that innovations have great potential to improve soft measures, both as a means for contributing to increased sustainable travel behaviours and as a means of making more rigorous evaluations. The thesis also contributes to the knowledge about how sustainable transport can be marketed, what creates motivation to reduce car use, as well as different perspectives on segmentation and which target groups soft measures can be aimed at. (Less) - Abstract (Swedish)
- Bilismen orsakar en mängd problem i våra städer. Det handlar dels om negativa effekter på människors hälsa på grund av skadliga partikelutsläpp, buller, trafikolyckor och stillasittande, dels om platsen den tar i anspråk vilket leder till trängsel och att värdefull mark tas i besittning av väginfrastruktur och parkeringsplatser. I ett större perspektiv bidrar biltrafiken även till utsläpp av växthusgaser som eldar på klimatförändringen. Samtidigt är bilen ett naturligt inslag i vårt sätt att leva och helt nödvändig för att många personers livspussel ska gå ihop. Politiker vill därför ogärna begränsa bilens framfart och transportplanerare har som följd svårt att tvinga fram ett minskat bilresande. Därför görs även försök med mjuka åtgärder... (More)
- Bilismen orsakar en mängd problem i våra städer. Det handlar dels om negativa effekter på människors hälsa på grund av skadliga partikelutsläpp, buller, trafikolyckor och stillasittande, dels om platsen den tar i anspråk vilket leder till trängsel och att värdefull mark tas i besittning av väginfrastruktur och parkeringsplatser. I ett större perspektiv bidrar biltrafiken även till utsläpp av växthusgaser som eldar på klimatförändringen. Samtidigt är bilen ett naturligt inslag i vårt sätt att leva och helt nödvändig för att många personers livspussel ska gå ihop. Politiker vill därför ogärna begränsa bilens framfart och transportplanerare har som följd svårt att tvinga fram ett minskat bilresande. Därför görs även försök med mjuka åtgärder som syftar till att uppmuntra fler människor att gå, cykla och åka kollektivtrafik. Det kan handla om att informera om alternativ till bil, marknadsföra nya cykelstråk och att erbjuda gratis provperioder med kollektivtrafik. Hittills har det visat sig svårt att utvärdera dessa åtgärder på ett bra sätt vilket lett till skepsis gällande dess nytta. Samtidigt behöver vi veta mer om vad som motiverar ändrade resvanor för olika målgrupper. Det behövs helt enkelt mer kunskap om mjuka åtgärder.
Ny teknik i form av exempelvis smartphones och el-cyklar har öppnat upp nya
möjligheter för mjuka åtgärder, både vad gäller utvärdering av dessa och potentialen att påverka bilanvändningen. Vidare så har tidigare forskning visat att det är viktigt att rikta mjuka åtgärder och anpassa information och marknadsföring till specifika målgrupper, även kallat segmentering. Mot denna bakgrund har avhandlingen undersökt smartphones, el-cykling och marknadsföring. Dessa tre element har på olika sätt använts för att undersöka motivation att minska bilresandet till förmån för gång, cykel och kollektivtrafik, samt målgruppsanpassning och utvärdering av mjuka åtgärder.
När det gäller smartphoneapplikationers möjlighet att påverka resandet visade
avhandlingens första artikel i en genomgång av tidigare forskning att det finns potential men att för få studier har genomförts för att kunna dra några generella slutsatser om hur mycket. I artikeln fastslogs att applikationer behöver anpassas till användaren, ge relevant information och feedback om ens beteende, skapa engagemang och ha en användarvänlig design. I den andra artikeln genomfördes en processutvärdering av ett projekt där en applikation utvecklades med syfte att underlätta det hållbara tjänsteresandet. Studien visade dock på flera svagheter med applikationen och svårigheten i att utvärdera effekten av en sådan mjuk åtgärd, vilket gav lärdomar om såväl studiedesign som utvecklingen av applikationer och dess implementering i organisationer.
I den tredje artikeln fann vi att marknadsföring för hållbart resande är mer motiverande om den riktar sig till kollektivet snarare än individen och innehåller altruistiska budskap kopplat till miljö och hälsa. Respondenternas angivna motivation att minska bilanvändningen speglade deras nuvarande bilanvändning och attityd gentemot miljön och olika färdmedel. Detta understryker vikten av att anpassa marknadsföring till de målgrupper man vill vända sig till. Den fjärde artikeln visade att individers klimatmoral, det vill säga det upplevda personliga ansvaret att minska sina växthusgasutsläpp, har en betydande påverkan på motivationen att minska bilanvändningen. Även vanor, restid och attityder gentemot bil- och cykelanvändning spelar roll. Sådana faktorer skiljer sig
åt beroende på kön, ålder, utbildningsnivå och mellan stad och landsbygd och kan ha betydelse för den segmentering som används för mjuka åtgärder.
Resultatet från den femte artikeln visade att el-cykeln har stor potential att ersätta bilen och bidra till ett mer hållbart resande. I en fältstudie där deltagarna utgjordes av vanebilister minskade bilresandet mätt i distans med i genomsnitt 37% till följd av att deltagarna fick tillgång till varsin el-cykel. Andelen cykling av allt resande ökade med drygt 20% i snitt. Deltagarna fick mäta sina resvanor och svara på frågor om sitt resande i sina smartphones vilket bidrog till hög datakvalité. Både effektutvärderingen av elcykling och användningen av smartphones för att mäta resvanor ger ett nytt och viktigt bidrag till forskningen om mjuka transportåtgärder samt den praktiska tillämpningen av dessa.
Slutsatsen från denna avhandling är att ny teknik har stor potential att förbättra mjuka åtgärder, både som medel för att bidra till ett ökat hållbart resande och som medel för att göra mer gedigna utvärderingar. Avhandlingen bidrar även med kunskap om hur hållbart resande kan marknadsföras, vad som skapar motivation att minska bilresandet, samt olika perspektiv på segmentering och vilka målgrupper som mjuka åtgärder kan riktas till. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/34291137-817d-42de-9b27-0823ee52a180
- author
- Söderberg, Alfred LU
- supervisor
- opponent
-
- Prof. Olsson, Lars E., University of Karlstad, Sweden.
- organization
- publishing date
- 2021-05-28
- type
- Thesis
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Soft transport measures, Modal shift, Innovation, ICT, E-bikes, Segmentation, Motivation, Evaluation
- in
- Bulletin - Lund University, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Technology and Society
- issue
- 321
- pages
- 190 pages
- publisher
- Lund University Faculty of Engineering, Technology and Society, Transport and Roads, Lund, Sweden
- defense location
- Lecture hall V:A, building V, John Ericssons väg 1, Faculty of Engineering LTH, Lund University, Lund.
- defense date
- 2021-05-28 10:00:00
- ISSN
- 1653-1930
- 1653-1930
- ISBN
- 978-91-7895-859-7
- 978-91-7895-860-3
- project
- Soft measures to shift modality
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 34291137-817d-42de-9b27-0823ee52a180
- date added to LUP
- 2021-05-04 11:55:17
- date last changed
- 2023-05-08 14:57:40
@phdthesis{34291137-817d-42de-9b27-0823ee52a180,
abstract = {{Traffic accumulated by cars is responsible for considerable problems in our cities. The problem is partly about the negative effects on human health due to harmful particulate emissions, noise, traffic accidents and sedentary lifestyles, partly about the space it occupies, which leads to congestion, and the fact that valuable land is taken up by road infrastructure and parking lots. In a bigger perspective, car traffic also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions that fuel climate change.<br/>At the same time, the car is ingrained in our way of life and a necessity for many people's lives to function. Politicians are therefore generally reluctant to limit car use, and as a result, transport planners find it difficult to enforce measures that lead to a significant reduction in car traffic. Attempts are being made with soft measures that encourage people to walk, cycle and take public transport. These measures can, for instance, be to inform about alternatives to car use, marketing new cycle routes, and offering free trial periods with public transport. So far, it has proved difficult to sufficiently evaluate these measures, which has led to scepticism about their usefulness. At the same time, we need to know more about what it is that motivates modal shifts for different groups. Thus, more knowledge about soft measures is needed.<br/><br/>Innovations in the form of smartphones and electric bicycles (e-bikes) have opened new opportunities for soft measures, both in terms of evaluation of these and the potential to influence car use. Furthermore, previous research has shown that it is important to target soft measures and adapt information and marketing to specific target groups, also called segmentation. Against this background, this thesis (including five individual papers) has examined smartphones, e-bikes, and marketing. These three elements have been used in variation to investigate motivation to reduce car use in favour of walking, cycling and public transport, segmenting and targeting, as well as evaluation of soft measures.<br/><br/>Regarding the possibility of smartphone applications to influence travel behaviour,<br/>explored in the first paper, a review of previous research showed that there is potential but that too few studies have been conducted to be able to draw any general conclusions. The paper found that applications need to be customised to the user, provide relevant information and feedback about the user’s behaviour, create a commitment towards its use, and have a user-friendly design. The second paper presented a process evaluation of a project where an application was developed to facilitate sustainable business travel. However, the study showed several weaknesses with the application and the difficulty in evaluating the effect of such a soft measure, which gave lessons about both study design and the development of applications and their implementation in organisations.<br/><br/>In the third paper, we found that marketing for sustainable travel is more motivating if it is aimed at the collective rather than the individual, and contains altruistic messages linked to the environment and health. The respondents’ stated motivation to reduce car use reflected their current car use and attitude towards the environment and various means of transport. This underlines the importance of adapting marketing to the target group. The fourth paper showed that one’s morality towards the climate has a significant impact on the motivation to reduce car use, but habits, travel time and attitudes towards car and bicycle use also play a role. Such factors differ between gender, age, level of education and between urban and rural areas and may be important for the segmentation used for soft measures.<br/><br/>The results from the fifth paper showed that e-bikes have exciting potential to replace the car and contribute to more sustainable travel behaviours. In a field experiment where the participants consisted of frequent drivers, car travel measured in distance decreased by an average of 37% as a result of the participants gaining access to their respective e-bike. The share of cycling of total travel increased by just over 20% on average. The participants measured their travel behaviour and answered survey questions using their smartphones, which contributed to high data quality. Both the effect evaluation of the use of e-bikes and the use of smartphones to measure travel behaviour make a novel and important contribution to the research field on soft transport measures, and the application of these in practice.<br/><br/>The thesis concludes that innovations have great potential to improve soft measures, both as a means for contributing to increased sustainable travel behaviours and as a means of making more rigorous evaluations. The thesis also contributes to the knowledge about how sustainable transport can be marketed, what creates motivation to reduce car use, as well as different perspectives on segmentation and which target groups soft measures can be aimed at.}},
author = {{Söderberg, Alfred}},
isbn = {{978-91-7895-859-7}},
issn = {{1653-1930}},
keywords = {{Soft transport measures; Modal shift; Innovation; ICT; E-bikes; Segmentation; Motivation; Evaluation}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{05}},
number = {{321}},
publisher = {{Lund University Faculty of Engineering, Technology and Society, Transport and Roads, Lund, Sweden}},
school = {{Lund University}},
series = {{Bulletin - Lund University, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Technology and Society}},
title = {{Soft measures to shift modality}},
url = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/97403933/Alfred_S_derberg_HELA.pdf}},
year = {{2021}},
}