By Milad Mehdizadeh,
Back home in Iran, I was one of those people who liked driving everywhere, and I eventually managed to buy a decent car. My friends and society treated owning a car as an investment, achievement, and as a sign of progress in life.
When I started researching transport about 13 years ago, as a student, I reacted poorly to ‘push policies’ like road pricing. Maybe it was because I did not trust the system, or because those policies clashed with mine and my friends’ values and attitudes. Moreover, strangely, in traditional transport planning and modelling, the main goal has often been to predict car-based travel so that we could build more roads to accommodate it. A lot of research has also focused on improving traffic flow or making roads safer. However, when I look at these approaches now, I cannot help feeling that most of them ultimately serve a car-oriented system and lifestyle.
Culture and infrastructure
Later, as I got deeper into research, I understood that for healthier lives and cities we need to think more about public transport, walking, and cycling. When I saw different countries up close, I noticed that peoples’ attitudes towards different modes of transport are partly tied to culture and infrastructure. For example, in parts of Western and Northern Europe the walking, cycling, and public-transport infrastructure was much stronger. Also, the welfare level in those countries was higher. The socioeconomic gap between households was much smaller, and population density was relatively lower compared to the Global South. I also noticed people there are less likely to judge someone based on whether or not they own a car, unlike in the Global South, the US, and to some extent the UK.
In the middle of my research phase I found the idea of electric and automated cars interesting, and I became influenced by the propaganda around them. But later I realised they are not going to help reduce car dependency issues. After moving to Northern Europe and spending a few more years in academia, surrounded by a network that cared a lot about the environment, my attitude towards cars finally start to change noticeably. This is the key point, to me. Changing people’s attitudes is not easy.
Becoming car-free
I spent many years in an environment that was very supportive of sustainable travel before I started to notice a change in my own attitude that has kept me car-free ever since. Before that, my attitude was mostly a function of my past, repeated behaviours and the people around me. This point is really important to me now, because nudging or soft persuasive policies suggest we should work on changing people’s attitudes in the hope that this will lead to a change in their behaviour. Although that may change behaviour a little and briefly, a lasting change in attitudes and behaviours takes a lot of time and dedication.
For me it took years of focussed research for the change to happen. Otherwise, it was unlikely. That is why, when I talk to friends outside academia and try to nudge them, I see my words have almost no effect. They may listen out of respect, but then they go back to their pre-existing value-based attitudes and behaviours. Or maybe I just don’t know how to nudge!
Collaborative design and system change
In our project, INFUZE, we remain hopeful that real change is possible with a collaborative approach. We’re working collaboratively with communities to identify issues which people say are most critical to their decisions to own or use a car and travel how they do. We’re exploring whether designing system change with members of the public to address those issues can change behaviour and by how much.
Overall, on the topic of car ownership and use, people are spread across different positions: some households have two cars, some have none and dream of buying one, some have a car and want to get rid of it, some are satisfied, some are unhappy. I assume that those who are very satisfied with how things are now may have strong feelings about keeping things as they are. Those who are dissatisfied, for whom life is harder under current conditions, may want to try to change it. At the same time, it matters what influence others have on our decisions and what financial and habitual background we already have. These can have a big effect.
What we hope to learn about behaviour change
We want to examine all of this through a cyclical, longitudinal model to see, first, how identifying and addressing the issues that people themselves consider most critical can lead to behavioural change, and by how much. Second, we want to understand how well this cyclical model explains the decision-making process over time. If we find that these system changes are not enough to influence behaviours effectively, that might indicate the need for more disruptive changes rather than incremental adjustments. People may change their beliefs (and behaviours) very reluctantly. For instance, if we or the co-design system placed a bus or train stop at everyone’s doorstep, what percentage of people do you think would sell their cars? What about if everyone could immediately access a carsharing system? On the other hand, what if all the city’s parking were suddenly removed instead, what do you think then?