Public Attitudes to Road Pricing: Exploring the Role of Older Age, Pro-sociality, Social Norms and Trust

Understanding the socio-psychological mechanisms that determine the public acceptability of road pricing could be a key for its implementation in urban environments where this is a viable scenario. Studying the attitudes of older people is of particular importance due to the aging of the populations in the industrialized democracies, the high political engagement of older people, and their vulnerability to transport-related social exclusion. Research by the present authors had previously identified that older people's beliefs about what is the normal, acceptable, or even expected choice in a particular social context (“social norms”) and their tendency to favor, more than any other age group, what is positively valued by society (“pro-social value orientation”) affect their attitudes to road pricing. The present paper aims to develop an in-depth understanding of these attitude-shaping determinants drawing on the findings of focus groups conducted in Bristol, UK. The findings suggest that there are three distinctive expressions of pro-sociality: pro-environmental values and generativity on the one hand, these two being drivers of support for road pricing, and pro-equity values on the other, which tend to drive opposition. Social norms have two particular expressions: subjective norms (i.e. norms reflecting people’s immediate social environment) and norms referring to others and society in general. Furthermore, a theory-driven thematic analysis indicates that trust in the integrity of the concept and older age as a life stage associated with aging, retirement, lower income, mobility barriers and deteriorating health are important in how attitudes reflecting and affecting public acceptability to road pricing form.

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABE50 Standing Committee on Transportation Demand Management. Alternate title: Public Attitudes Toward Road Pricing: Exploring the Role of Older Age, Pro-sociality, Social Norms, and Trust.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Nikitas, Alexandros
  • Avineri, Erel
  • Parkhurst, Graham
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
• Date: 2016

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 17p
• Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Aged; Attitudes; Congestion pricing; Psychological trust; Public opinion; Road pricing; Social factors
• Uncontrolled Terms: Social norms
• Geographic Terms: Bristol (England)
• Subject Areas: Finance; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Society; I10: Economics and Administration; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01587987
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 16-0567
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Jan 27 2016 5:13PM