Getting the timing right: using 'moments of change' to promote sustainable travel behaviour

Addressing climate change requires profound behavioural changes, including within transport. Indeed, reducing car use is one of the most impactful mitigation behaviour changes that individuals can make. Yet, travel behaviours are amongst the most difficult to change.

This is partly because they are strongly habitual - unconscious routines triggered by contextual cues (e.g., 'it's 8am, time to drive to work') rather than the product of conscious deliberation of alternatives (e.g., 'which mode of transport would be best today?'). But since habits are cued by stable contexts, changes in context destabilise habits. Consistent with this, research shows that disruptions - whether concerning a person's life-course (e.g. moving home) or physical or social context (e.g. infrastructure disruption) - provide opportunities to reshape behaviours in new directions. Interventions targeted to moments of change are thus more effective than at other times.

While much research has explored these 'windows of opportunity' during biographical life events, such as moving home, retiring, or becoming a parent, less is understood about how wider societal disruptions (e.g., changes to urban environments) might provoke positive behaviour change. This PhD research will thus explore the impact that physical infrastructure disruptions (e.g., road closures, liveable neighbourhoods) might have on modal shift and travel demand.

Further, the project will evaluate the effectiveness of interventions (e.g., financial incentives) promoting active travel and public transport that are implemented during such disruptions.

Working with a variety of industrial partners, including Transport for Wales and North Somerset Council, a series of three studies will be conducted which evaluate the impact of travel infrastructure disruptions on travel behaviour and demand.

The first study will investigate how road users respond to different types of road disruptions (e.g., varying in scale) with the aim of gauging the tipping points for how disruptive an event must be to provoke attitudinal or behaviour change. To do this, mixed methods surveys will be conducted asking road users to report how they would adapt their travel behaviour to different disruptive scenarios.

The second empirical study will involve evaluating and comparing real-life road user behaviour in response to road disruptions across several case studies. To do this, mixed methods surveys will monitor how road users' psychological (e.g., habits, attitudes, values), structural (e.g., experience of physical infrastructure), and sociodemographic factors influence their responses to road disruptions.

Participants for both the first and second study will be recruited through a combination of paid recruitment platforms (e.g., Prolific) and social media platforms and customer panels of the industrial partners. Anonymous travel data collected by the industrial partners will also be used as objective measures of behaviour change.

Finally, a third study will aim to capture the perspective of transport planners and providers on how infrastructure disruptions are viewed and prepared for, and if and how positive behaviour change is promoted. To do this, several semi-structured interviews will be conducted with those involved in travel planning/decision-making within the key partner organisations.

These will include the partner representatives already involved in the project and further participants will be recruited through word-of-mouth.