Víctor Sánchez A POSITIVE ATTITUDE TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT

REACTIVA A R&D project investigating how to promote positive attitudes towards public transport What is REACTIVA? Behavioural changes don’t last without attitudinal changes Why study attitudes? MAKE IT PERSONAL How to increase public transport use?

What is REACTIVA? REACTIVA is a R&D project funded by CEDEX Investigate how to promote positive attitudes towards public transport Objective State of the art: why attitudes are important to change modal choices Map Spanish attitudes towards transport New approaches to promote positive attitudes Recommendations for different stakeholders Tasks

Why study attitudes? Outcomes of standard transport policies are reaching their limits… … and the most promising policies are politically unacceptable!!! Car is the best seller of transport modes… … and the car industry is not concerned with travel time savings!!! What we knew Attitudes reflect the way one perceives the world around They are the psychologist’s “willingness to pay” What are attitudes?

What we have learnt - 1 Modal choice is no all about time… but, if you ask, it seems so Context determines choices Habits may go against our attitudes and intentions Policies are not neutral in the process of modal choice Economic approach is adequate for appraisal… … but it is not always good for implementation Economic approach limitations

What we have learnt - 2 Not focused on the right target market Focused on the wrong psychological factors Don’t distinguish between changing attitudes and changing behaviour Policy failures occur during execution

What we have learnt - 3 Access: trip chain and urban sprawl favours positive attitudes towards cars Skills: we dismiss what we don’t know how to use Appropriation: Social level: citizen of the road Individual level: habits and planned behaviour Attitudes are in every element of the mobility context

How attitudes increase public transport use? PERSUADE people of your objectives: sustainable transport Beware, you are likely to crash into the “system of automobility” SOCIAL CONTEXT Don’t focus on socioeconomic segments… THE AVERAGE CITIZEN DOESN’T EXIST INDIVIDUAL CONTEXT How we make decisions and remember that to break a habit we need to change our behaviour PERSUADE people of your policies: make them acceptable But people may develop attitudes on policies after facing them Building positive attitude towards public transport

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