Motivations and Barriers to Adopting Sustainable Travel Behaviour

Abstract

This paper investigates different travel behaviour related projects and identifies barriers and motivations for behavioural change towards more sustainable mobility. Since methodologies from other disciplines such as sociology and psychology are becoming more important for travel behaviour research, a main focus is on inter-disciplinary approaches. These concepts seem to constitute fruitful attempts to enrich a useful knowledge base for policy and planning measures. Additionally, results from the authors’ previous research are used to compare drivers and constraints for environmentally friendly behaviour. In general, determinants for behavioural decisions differ between types of travel – in terms of daily and tourist travel – and between transport user groups. Socio-psychological factors like attitudes towards the environment and towards certain modes of transport or the importance of moral obligation and environmental beliefs are main influencing variables for daily travel. Tourist travel decisions are more dependent on individual socioeconomic situations. The resulting conflict between individual knowledge about negative sustainability related effects from air travel and conflicting individual unsustainable actions leads to a strategy of collective denial and a psychological gap, where people wait for others to act without changing their own behaviour.