Surajit Bhattacharya -B. Arch Changing Travel Behaviour through Visual Campaign

1 Surajit Bhattacharya - B. Arch, MUP, MTP, AIIA, AITP

ITPI JOURNAL

Journal of the Institute of Town Planners, India Volume -10, Number-3 (2013) 66-73

Changing Travel Behaviour through Visual Campaign

Surajit Bhattacharya

Architect, Urban & Transport Planner

Abstract

In the context of transport and travel behaviour, marketing could be used to present information

with regard to travel options, provide information and advice, raise awareness level and change

perceptions, attitudes, norms so as preferences. Commuters, travellers and journey makers

could be influenced by the kind of symbolic imageries in the context of transport for influencing

certain kind of undesirable travel behaviour, when motorised transport is seen as a future threat

to human environment and general public health as well due to increased use of private car. In

this paper, the behavioural theories have been applied to design a caption to address changing

travel behaviour. This design could be used to change travel behaviour in a specific context

having both visual and textual elements to facilitate the change of travel behaviour.

Introduction

Marketing is one approach which seeks to distribute its messages to the public via

posters, leaflets, flyers, and advertisements in the print or electronic media (Bonsall,

2005). In the context of transport and travel behaviour, marketing could be used to

present information with regard to travel options, provide information and advice, raise

awareness level and change perceptions, attitudes, norms so as preferences.

Commuters, travellers and journey makers could be influenced by the kind of symbolic

imageries in the context of transport for influencing certain kind of undesirable travel

behaviour when motorised transport is seen as a future threat to human environment

(Gärling and Steg, 2007) and general public health as well due to increased use of

private car.


The average distance walked per person per year fell from 255 miles in 1975/76 to 192

miles in 2003 (DFT, 2004) and bicycle distance fell from 51 miles per person per year

to 34 miles over the same period in England (DFT, 2004). Reductions in cycling and

walking have reduced the daily human energy expenditure (Fox and Hillsdon, 2006)

contributing to increase in adult obesity from 15% in 1993 to 24% in 2006 (NHS, 2008).

The very environmental and health concerns have led to the finding ways and means

for developing and implementing transport policy measures by reducing and changing

car use (Kitamura and Fuji, 1998; Kitamura et.al., 1997).These measures are

considered as the ‘soft measures’ which are the policy implications of the behavioural

theories.

Back Ground of UK policy measures for changing travel behaviour

The 2008 modal share in the UK shows the dominance of car modal share as is

evident from FIG: 1 (in appendix). The figure shows that the 47% of the average

number of trips made by car/van and that of average distance travelled by car/van is

51%.The emerging fact that hard policy measures such as physical changes to

transport infrastructure or operations, traffic engineering, control of road space and

changes in price alone fail to deliver the needed car use reduction (Kitamura et al. ,

1997; Stopher, 2004). Perhaps these sobering experiences are reasons for the

demonstrated interest by transport planners in a range of initiatives which are widely

described as soft transport policy measures (Jones and Sloman, 2006; Rose and

Ampt, 2001; Taniguchi et al., 2007). The main feature is that they try to influence

individual choice by means of information and persuasion. Frequently implemented

examples of soft transport policy measures include workplace travel plans,

personalised travel planning, public transport marketing, and travel awareness

campaigns (Gärling and Fujii, 2006).

It is therefore imperative in the present context to identify psychological determinants of

people´s current travel behaviour as well as their motivation to change this behaviour.

Many a times hard measures are not welcomed by the public in general and have

political implications attached to them, however soft measures are perceived as to

directly influence the ‘decision making’ process by changing or correcting people's

perceptions about a specific type of travel behaviour. Last decade has seen

psychological researchers concentrating more on a person’s decision to use the car

has been guided by mainly two behavioural theories; they are the Norm-Activation

Model (NAM) developed by Schwartz (1977) and the Theory of Planned Behaviour

(TPB) developed by Ajzen (1991).


Behavioural theories relevant to travel behaviour

Schwartz (1977) developed the Norm-Activation Model (NAM) (FIG: 2 in Appendix) to

explain pro-social behaviours. Later on using NAM behavioural theory researchers

conceptualised reduction in car use as a behaviour primarily driven by pro-social

objectives. According to the assumption personal norm is viewed as the most important

determinant of travel mode choice. In his norm-activation theory, (Schwartz, 1977)

defines personal norms as self expectations that are based on internalized values.

Personal norms reflect commitment with internalized values and are experienced as

feelings of personal obligation to engage in a certain behaviour (Schwartz, 1977).

Personal norms will influence behaviour when they are activated. Activation occurs

when (a) someone is aware of the consequences of one’s behaviour for the welfare of

others, and (b) one ascribes at least some responsibility for these consequences to

oneself. When these conditions are met, the personal norm is considered to be

activated, bringing about a feeling of personal obligation that guides behaviour

(Schwartz & Howard, 1984). The perception that one is responsible for a behaviour

causing harm to other people frequently triggers feeling of guilt (Weiner, 1995), which

is a pro-social emotion in that it results in a felt obligation to compensate for the caused

damage (Baumeister, 1998).

The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) (FIG: 3 in Appendix) is an extension of the

Theory of Reasoned action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) and was

developed by Ajzen (1991) which assumes that a behaviour depends on the relative

strength of the intentions to perform that behaviour having a combination of

behavioural beliefs and attitude toward the behaviour or the combination of normative

beliefs and subjective norms leading to the intention to perform that behaviour or that of

combination of control beliefs and perceived behavioural control as antecedent

variables to the intention to perform the behaviour (Ajzen 1991). In the context of

transport, while forming an intention towards two different modes of transport, people

take into account difficulties associated with the transport modes along with the

attitudes towards these travel modes (Bamberg et al., 2011). Travel mode choice is

guided by a rational evaluation of behavioural consequences. The sum of perceived

positive and negative consequences determines the global attitude toward a transport

option. Attitude does not directly determine travel behaviour but indirectly via

behavioural intention. In the TPB social norms are primarily conceptualised as

perceived social pressure that is the expectations of significant reference persons to

use or not use a specific transport option. The theory of planned behaviour further


assumes that when perceived behavioural control corresponds to objective behavioural

control; it predicts behaviour directly (Bamberg et al., 2011).

A third behavioural model Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour was developed by

Triandis (1977). This theory was originally created to predict interactions amongst

public. The model is based on three main attributes in terms of their importance in

influencing behaviour and these are habit, intention and facilitating conditions as shown

in (FIG: 4 in Appendix). In both TPB and NAM it is found that the behaviour is well

thought of and deliberate. But in the theory of interpersonal behaviour habit accounted

for the behaviour which is repeated regularly and is performed subconsciously without

being consciously thinking about the behaviour before performance. Transport related

behaviours are also found to be related to habits and thus this theory better predicts

the behaviour in the transport context (Bamberg and Schmidt, 2003). Also this model

includes emotion which has been found to be another antecedent influencing intention

without conscious effort and differentiates assumptions of conscious behaviour

proposed in the NAM and TPB. Similar to habit even emotions do not require

conscious thought to occur (DFT toolkit 2011)

Relevance of behavioural theories to travel behaviour their importance

In the Norm Activation Model, personal norm is found to be influenced by ascription

of consequences and ascription of responsibility. In the context of transport increasing

car use is contributing to climate change, congestion on the road, obesity and air

pollution which are the consequence of performing these behaviours and in turn

affecting the people in general. This behaviour (car use) carries with it the social

responsibilities and consequently social pressure activates personal norms to change

to different travel mode which will not cause harm to the society and finally perform that

behaviour. The main policy implications of this theory are to create awareness about

the social and environmental impacts of such behaviour (car use) and persuade people

to make a difference within their ways and means by changing to cycling to work. This

model ignores, habit, self interest and perceived behaviour control.

The Theory of Planned Behaviour when applied to the cycling behaviour in the

context of transport shown in FIG: 5 (in Appendix), it could be found that the

antecedent beliefs like cycling to work is fun, lots of people like me to cycle to work and

it is easy to cycle to work represent the behavioural, normative and control beliefs

respectively. Behavioural beliefs strengthen the attitude towards cycling which is ‘I like

cycling to work’, normative beliefs reinforces the subjective norm i.e ‘It’s normal for me


to cycle to work’ and control beliefs facilitates perceived behavioural control i.e ‘It is

easy for me to cycle to work’. All of them combined influence ‘I intend to cycle to work’

and finally ‘I cycle to work’. Policy implications of theory of planned behaviour are

changing people’s beliefs that people hold about a behaviour and their evaluation of

those beliefs. People need to be informed about the behaviour of other people and

their opinions and options are to be made easier for the people to use. The theory

ignores habit emotions affect and morals.

The Fig: 6 (in Appendix) illustrates how Triandis’ Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour

can be applied to travel behaviour in the context of transport. Considering the cycling to

work as a travel behaviour, it could be seen that the final behavioural outcome (‘I cycle

to work’) is the same as for the Theory of Planned Behaviour example shown above.

But the theory includes wider range of factors such as emotions (Feeling of pleasure

while cycling to work), affect (I enjoy cycling to work). Also habit (cycling to work is

something I do all the time without having to think about it) and past behaviour (I have

cycled to work many times before) influence the behaviour directly. Facilitating

conditions such as ‘short enough distances between home and work’, and ‘low enough

traffic volumes’ with slow traffic on the route as well influence final behavioural outcome

of ‘I cycle to work’. This theory of interpersonal behaviour takes into account an array of

attributes for determining the actual performance of behaviour.


Figure shows: Designed Caption


Design Concept

The designed poster, as part of the awareness campaign is to trigger the behavioural

beliefs towards optimistic side of the cycling behaviour. The poster has been designed

in two parts. The first part has been inspired by the Theory of Planned Behaviour and

the second part has been inspired by the Norm Activation Model. Both the theories

have been jointly applied to make the campaign poster more effective one.

Since it has been established that the adverse outcomes of increasing car use such as

climate change because of the emission of green house gases and health problems

like obesity, diabetes and blood pressure which are the direct consequence of lack of

exercise are increasing social cost rather than increasing social benefits. The content

of the poster includes both visual and textual elements in it to convey a message

underpinning the fact of confirmatory information about the cycling behaviour. The first

part represents a cyclist which is symbolic to cycling behaviour and aiming for

behavioural change towards cycling together with the textual matter in it. The textual

message ‘Research shows that we can’ refers to the empirical evidences related to the

ability to change towards healthy life style as has been signified by ‘add 2 years to our

life expectancy while we cycle and also burn 450 calories per hour (Mcmullan, 2007)’.

The message has been written in first person emphasising ‘we can’ as to have an

inclusive effect rather than just a piece of advice to the people. The arrow indicates an

increased stress to perform a desirable behaviour in the back drop of the suggestive

information backed by the empirical evidences.

The second part of the poster design deals with the individual responsibility for the

environment and people’s wellbeing for enhanced ‘quality of life’. The Norm Activation

Model assumes that the personal norm is influenced by acknowledgment of the

consequences and responsibility as an individual holds towards the global issues

affecting people. In this part of the design the visual element portrays a cyclist kicking

the car off the road, which is symbolic to resisting to a behaviour having the dominance

of car dependency life style. The textual matter ‘let us think together for our future’

reiterates and creates a niche for thinking together for the future commitment to the

people and attempts to inform about the responsibility towards a bright and sustainable

future linked to the second part of the textual element ‘let us clear the air and the road

to be healthy and wealthy’; which implies responsibility lies in controlling air pollution

which is the consequence of increased use of car leading to road congestion. Once the

responsibility towards air pollution and road congestion is realised then the personal

norm is activated and will be a decisive factor for forming personal norm which will lead


to bring about changes in the behaviour. The information asserts that while the

behaviour towards car is changed that is to say ‘using bicycle’ will subsequently make

way for better health and saving money directly from reduced car dependency as well

in a broader perspective saving on social costs for enhancement of social benefits. The

arrow in this respect clearly completes the intention of the message by establishing

relationship between the responsibility and consequence to the formation of personal

norm.

Critique to the practical aspects and evaluation of applied measures

Providing information is the first step towards influencing behaviour change rather than

an end point. Many people have less awareness level about the benefits of cycling and

walking and their beliefs about using car is firm which is considered as the pre-

contemplation stage in Trans Theoretical Model (TTM) (stages of change model). The

process of raising conscious level is possible with the help of information dissemination

which is practical to the attempt to make changes to the behaviour in any given context

of any kind in general. Pre and Post information dissemination, the need arises for the

evaluation of the effectiveness of the awareness campaign which involves stages in

evaluation of awareness,

attitudes and beliefs,

intentions and that of

behaviour as shown in

the FIG: 7, the model

used to evaluate a

campaign. Awareness

level could be evaluated with the help of simple survey asking questions about the

liking and understanding of the campaign in the context of changing travel behaviour in

the scale of 0-10. Attitudes and intentions could be evaluated considering the pre and

post application of the measures and changes occurred as a consequence to the

campaign in a definite time scale. Finally, behaviour could be evaluated by actually

observing the individual behaviour changes in the said time scale.

Conclusion

Behavioural theories have been already applied to changing travel behaviour and are

effective soft policy instruments to achieve reduced dependency on the use of car but

actual evidences of sustained control on such behaviour has not been yet established

and require longitudinal research on such application of soft policies to establish their

efficacy in the context of changing travel behaviour.

FIG: 7 Source: Avineri, E.


APPENDIX

Source : http://people.umass.edu/aizen/tpb.diag.html

FIG: 1

FIG: 2

FIG: 3

Source : Musselwhite, C

Source : Chatterjee, K.

http://people.umass.edu/aizen/tpb.diag.html


FIG: 4

FIG: 5

FIG: 6

Source : DFT Insight Tool Kit




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