The Challenge to Transport Psychology – how to get the world to burn less fossil fuel

Stephen G. Stradling, Transport Research Institute, Napier University, Edinburgh, UK

In order to help combat climate change and to compliment the theme of his presentation, Stephen Stradling will present live from Edinburgh. Delegates will have the opportunity to ask questions following his presentation.

Direct impacts of motorised transport on the planet include: anthropogenic (man-made) global warming through the production of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuel; vehicle emissions affecting local pollution and health; vehicle noise; land take for roads and parking, railways and airports; extraction of materials for manufacture; and waste from scrapped vehicles. Transport choices need to be smart choices.

Improving the fuel efficiency of vehicles and reducing the fossil carbon content of transport fuel may still lead to overall increases in environmental burden through sheer growth in activity volumes as well as rebound effects. Indeed, in the worst case scenario, motorists, given more environmentally friendly cars and fuel, may feel they can thus drive more frequently, further and faster, akin to the risk compensation or behavioural adaptation drivers show in consuming car safety benefits as performance benefits.

As we enter the era of peak-oil, problems with energy security and scarcity generating diplomatic incidents and oil wars, increased emissions fuelling anthropogenic climate change, increased road congestion and rapid growth in domestic and international aviation, there is an urgent need to burn less carbon-based fuel as we go about our daily business.

In a car-dependent society such as the UK around eight in ten adults are in a household with access to a car and half travel by car as a driver or passenger every day or nearly every day. However, a large majority agree that current levels of car travel have a serious effect on climate change and are concerned about this and there is widespread support for the idea that everyone should be cutting down on their car use. Two-thirds of drivers say they are willing to cut their car use and three in five would be able to shift from using the car on short journeys to cycling, walking, or taking the bus. There is a hard-core of around a quarter of the population who believe that everyone has the right to use their car as much as they wish, but the overall climate of public opinion can nevertheless be described as favourable towards a reduction in car use, despite the fact that transport joins up the places where people lead their lives, so reduction in use will only be achieved by car users modifying the organisation and articulation of their current patterns of life.

Demand-side changes are necessary and this paper will review recent research, in Scotland, the UK and elsewhere, on readiness for reduction in motorised transport. Governments need to harness the substantial, reported readiness to change by devoting more effort to demand-side measures, facilitating the availability, accessibility, attractiveness and utility of more sustainable forms of transport.