Using the six principles of persuasion to promote community based travel behavior change

Social psychology offers a series of persuasion techniques that are able to strengthen the impact of community based voluntary travel behavior change programs such as the TravelSmart programs currently being conducted in selected inner suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. This paper presents selected results of two separate field experiments that have applied six particular persuasion techniques as part of a community based TravelSmart campaign. In a small-scale pilot test of 160 households, combinations of persuasion elements were tested in eight different treatment groups while controlling for a number of socio-demographic variables. Modelling the intervention up-take as a function of socio-demographic variables indicates the problem of linguistic barriers associated with a multi-cultural urban population. In contrast, bicycle availability and current use of public transit both have a positive impact on TravelSmart participation. In the principal field test of some 800 test and control households, the use of persuasion strategies yields a statistically significant increase in TravelSmart up-take from 51 percent (control) to 58 percent (test). These results indicate the need to explore an extension of the persuasion principles from their use in the recruitment process to at all other implementation stages of voluntary travel behaviour change programs.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Seethaler, R K
  • Rose, G
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 85th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2006-1-22 to 2006-1-26
• Date: 2006

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: 22p
• Monograph Title: Transportation Research Board 85th Annual Meeting compendium of papers CD-ROM, January 22-26, 2006, Washington, DC

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bicycles; Field studies; Households; Psychology; Public transit; Socioeconomic factors; Travel behavior
• Geographic Terms: Melbourne (Australia)
• ATRI Terms: Bicycle; Change; Field study; Household; Psychology; Public transport; Socioeconomic factors; Travel behaviour
• Subject Areas: Economics; Public Transportation; Safety and Human Factors; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01388182
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: ARRB
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Aug 23 2012 12:40AM