Travel behaviour change guidance handbook

Print version: Travel behaviour change guidance handbook (PDF, 1.29 MB, 87 pages)

6.   Glossary of key terms

Buy-in

Buy-in may be seen as the first phase of obtaining the commitment of the target population to a TBhC initiative, encouraging them to help achieve the project’s goals. During the buy-in phase, the project leaders paint a “big picture” that generates support for the project, largely by tapping into people’s emotions. In essence, they develop a story line that fulfils the target population’s agenda and makes them say, “Yes, you understand my (or my family’s) needs, I’m on board!”

Car clubs

The basic premise of a car club is that people have access to a car in their neighbourhood without having to own it. Generally, there is an annual membership fee, accompanied by an hourly or per km fee for actual usage of the car. This is payable to the operator of the car club who provides and maintains a range of vehicles in the neighbourhood. The costs of the car club membership, including any vehicle usage costs, are intended to be less than the costs of conventional car ownership. While there are approximately 80-100 cities internationally (including 2 in Australia) that have car clubs, it appears that very little monitoring of actual behaviour change has been undertaken.

Clustered school or workplace travel plans

The implementation of more than one school or workplace travel plan in a particular locality to gain economies of scale and increase the overall travel behaviour change.

Commitment

It is important for the target population (the “stakeholders”) of the TBhC initiative to first buy-in, and then take ownership of the project, in order to help create and implement its vision and to ensure that momentum is not lost after the initial surge of interest and enthusiasm. Commitment is easier to obtain when the benefits to all members are understood; where wide participation is encouraged early in the process and regularly thereafter; and where communication is on-going and takes multiple forms.

Demonstration of commitment arises through quantitative and qualitative evidence of buy-in (e.g. how many people attend the meetings? Are all groups represented or have some opted out? Are people aware of the project?). An important indicator of commitment is formalised agreements, clearly outlining the roles and responsibilities, including contribution of resources, the strategies for evaluation and communication, of all players.

Diversion rate

The percentage of trips transferred or diverted from “car as driver” and/or “car as passenger” (depending on the type of TBhC project) to passenger transport, walking, cycling, or ride sharing as a result of implementing the TBhC programme.

Household-based TBhC initiatives

Personalised, voluntary travel behaviour change programmes that focus on journeys where the residence is the starting point and return destination leading to a reduction in private car use and, in some cases, the overall need to travel. Two of the most common types of household-based initiatives are “personalised marketing” and Travel Blending®.

Integrated travel plans

Any combination of household-based TBhC initiatives, workplace, and/or school travel plans in a particular locality designed to increase the overall travel behaviour change.

Living Neighbourhood®

A “Living Neighbourhood” is one where Travel Blending® is applied along with other measures aimed to enable and facilitate travel behaviour changes in the neighbourhood. One common additional measure is to employ a person to work in the area as a broker / facilitator of change. The approach is based on the premise that barriers to behaviour change, other than lack of education and information, may exist and that many of these may be overcome by changes within the neighbourhood, such as re-routing of bus routes, improving footpaths, etc.

Personalised journey planning

A technique providing individualised analysis or advice to people based on their journey making characteristics. The advice is usually focused on one particular journey, such as the journey to work or to visit the hospital. The key to the approach is an organisation knowing in advance the origin, destination, and time of a person's travel, and this is mostly achieved via an individual travel survey questionnaire.

Personalised marketing

Personalised marketing, popularised in Europe as Indimark® or, in Australia, as TravelSmart®, is a behaviour change technique aimed at affecting overall travel behaviour. It aims to change the way a person thinks about their travel. Generally, personalised marketing encourages people to use more environmentally friendly modes (passenger transport, walking or cycling) as a replacement to car-based trips, without regard to particular journeys.

Ride share

Also known as “car pooling” (or car sharing in the UK), ride share schemes encourage individuals to share private vehicles for particular journeys. There are a range of different initiatives involved, including informal arrangements (which may happen spontaneously) for sharing trips between individuals taking children to and from school; to more formal schemes involving “trip matching” and generally focused on the journey to work; to arrangements encouraging sharing for longer-distance leisure or work journeys.

School travel plan

A systematic framework encouraging safe and sustainable behaviour by students travelling to and from a particular school. Specifically, the travel plan documents the actions formulated by children, parents and staff, aimed at increasing environmentally friendly travel. These actions often include education (cycle safety training), encouragement (walking school buses), enforcement (parking management) and engineering (providing pedestrian crossings and/or traffic calming).

Target population

The target population is the total population of the workplace, school, or community in which the TBhC project is being implemented. It includes the people who do not participate in the project and those who participate but do not change their behaviour. The composite benefit values in the TBhC evaluation procedure are calculated as averages that take into account the fact that many people do not change travel behaviour in response to a TBhC project.

Type of TBhC project	Definition of target population
Workplace	The total workforce (number of employees) at the workplace covered by the travel plan. Make appropriate adjustment if a significant proportion of employees work more or less than the standard five days per week.
School	The total school roll. If this is expected to vary significantly in the next few years use an appropriate average.
Household / community	The total population of the community/suburb/area in which the household/community based initiative is being implemented.

Travel awareness campaigns

A wide range of media is used to improve the general public’s understanding of the local environment and health problems resulting from (poor) transport choices and what can be done to resolve these issues, including changing their own behaviour. Travel awareness campaigns may also aim to improve knowledge of the facilities available for passenger transport, cycling and walking use.

Travel behaviour change (TBhC)

A range of strategies which encourage voluntary change in travel mode by a targeted audience through education and marketing-based approaches, usually aiming to reduce car use and encourage alternatives to driving or reducing the need to drive. These strategies include household, school and workplace travel plans, as well as a variety of other initiatives such as public transport marketing campaigns, improvements to services and infrastructure, and other initiatives that raise awareness and improve options for travel.

Travel blending®

Travel Blending® involves in-depth analysis of people's travel behaviour, based on their completion of a 7 day travel diary. The participants are provided with suggestions on how they individually might reduce their motor vehicle travel and increase the overall efficiency of their travel. These suggestions are supported by customised information (bus timetables, maps, cycle hire, guides to local services etc.) designed to assist participants in implementing the suggestions. Follow up monitoring (based on the completion of a second 7 day travel diary) and further feedback can be provided.

Travel demand management (TDM)

Strategies that aim to increase the overall efficiency of transport and reduce traffic congestion, energy use and pollution, by affecting the demand for travel rather than the supply of roads. Strategies can be voluntary (carrots) such as travel planning or mandatory (sticks) such as congestion charging.

Travel diary

A travel diary is a type of survey that gathers evidence of the respondent’s travel activities over a prescribed period of time, usually 1 to 7 days. The purpose of the travel diary is to have respondents write down each place they stopped at as they progressed through the day, in order to obtain a more complete description of travel behaviour and better reporting of trip characteristics, such as the time of day the trip started, trip duration, trip distance, trip purpose, etc.

Workplace travel plan

A systematic framework to change travel behaviour for work (and tertiary study) related journeys. Specifically, it documents agreed actions, incentives and policies to encourage sustainable travel to and from a workplace. It may also tackle travel on “employer’s business” (such as customer service calls, deliveries, meeting attendance) during working hours. The travel plan may target employees only or it may address the travel behaviour of visitors to the workplace (e.g. hospitals, tertiary educational institutions, shopping malls). Measures adopted in the travel plan range from ride sharing and teleworking facilities, subsidised public transport and parking controls, to installation of showers and cycling infrastructure.

 

< previous | next >

Page created: 22 October 2008