Stimulating Sustainable Urban Travel Behavior through Mobility as a Service

Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master Thesis
Program
Industrial ecology (MPTSE), MSc
Publicerad
2018
Författare
Hargelius, Siri
Alm, Kim
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The purpose of this study is to examine factors and strategies to encourage and stimulate sustainable travel behavior. The research field of so called persuasive strategies is reviewed in the literature, applied to awoke a change in travel behavior, and then reviewed again during interviews with Swedish mobility service providers. The following two research questions steered the work of this study: What types of strategies exist to incentivize sustainable travel behavior? and How are these applied among Swedish mobility service providers?. This study employs a qualitative approach with mixed methods consisting of a literature review on the topic of persuasive strategies in the context of sustainable mobility, and an interview study conducted with twelve Swedish mobility service providers. Today’s road transport sector gives rise to numerous severe sustainability issues. Utilization of private cars contributes to e.g. pollution, global warming and congestion. It also inflicts negative impacts on human health and socio-economic factors. Further, private car ownership is problematic regarding the inefficient resource use. To facilitate modal shift from private cars, alternative services like public transport, biking, carpools, bikepools etc., must be designed to fulfill the needs of travellers, in order to compete with car ownership. One attempt to do just that is Mobility as a Service, MaaS, offering a seamless combined mobility service, placing the customer needs in focus. The literature review resulted in an analytical framework consisting of persuasive strategies, framed as nudges through digital media and gamification, including different persuasive mechanisms. The analytic framework puts sustainability issues in relation to practices aimed to stimulate sustainable travelling. The mobility service providers were highly aware of sustainability issues related to transport, but not as knowledgeable of possible indirect effects from utilization of their own services. Persuasive strategies were not particularly recognized as a way to stimulate sustainable travel behaviors. Concluding remarks concern conducting long-term pilots to understand the effects of using persuasive strategies, increasing practitioners’ knowledge within the field of research. Lastly, the necessity of combined efforts through policy interventions, and practitioner acting in light of research, in order to stimulate sustainable travelling, is emphasized.
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Övrig industriell teknik och ekonomi , Other industrial engineering and economics
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