در مورد استفاده و پتانسیل اقتصاد رفتاری از چشم انداز حمل و نقل و تغییرات آب و هوایی

It can be argued that the main thinking in transport planning and policy making stem from neoclassical economics in which individuals are largely assumed to make rational, consistent, and efficient choices, and apply cognitive processes of decision making that maximise their economic utility. Research in behavioural sciences indicates that individuals’ choices in a wide range of contexts deviate from the predictions of the rational man paradigm inspired the research agenda in the field of travel behaviour. New concepts and practices of government aim to apply some behavioural economics insights in the design of behavioural change initiatives and measures, an approach recently advocated in the US and the UK. This paper provides a brief review on the use and potential of behavioural economics from the perspective of transport and climate change, in two main contexts: travel demand modelling and design of behaviour change measures. The discussion of limitations and knowledge gaps associated with the implementation of behavioural economics to a travel behaviour context might contribute to the debate and help in defining research agenda in this area.

Travel behaviour has been an area of great interest to practitioners and researchers ever since the introduction of transport modelling in the 1950s. The travel choices made by individuals – such as mode choices, route choices and time choices – all have a direct impact on the performance of transport systems and networks. Increasing awareness that our travel behaviour generates positive and negative effects on our individual and collective wealth, health and well-being extended the application of travel behaviour research to a wider context. A range of negative and positive externalities associated with travel choices are been considered by transport researchers and practitioners more seriously than ever; such are, for example, transport-related CO2 emissions which contribute to the problem of climate change (Chapman, 2007). In the European Union, the transport sector (excluding air travel) represents 18% of all CO2 emissions (EEA, 2011, p. 36). Considerable reductions in emissions are required from the transport sector to meet environmental targets set by international organisations (such as UNFCCC, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), but it has been largely recognised that such targets cannot be fully met without substantial change to travel demand. Modelling and understanding of travel behaviour have been long been applied in the field of transport, addressing three main goals: (i) to provide theoretic insights on why and how people travel; (ii) to estimate the properties of attributes associated with the travel choices (e.g. travel time, travel cost) and with travellers’ characteristics (e.g. socio-demographics) in order to predict their future behaviour; and (iii) to test the possible outcomes of proposed infrastructure or policy changes, with an ultimate goal of making effective improvements to social and individual wellbeing through the development and implementation of a range of design, planning and policy measures. This paper provides a critical review of the theoretical and practical application of concepts and theories associated with the emerging field of behavioural economics in the context of travel behaviour and the major challenges associated with it – climate change being one of them. It addresses the potential contribution of behavioural economics to two different although linked applied fields of transport research: the modelling of travel choices and the design of behaviour change initiatives. This paper is not intended to be a systematic review of behavioural economics; it aims to report on a selective sample of concepts from this field that might be of specific relevance to those who are interested in its application to transport and climate change context (for a wider background to behavioural economics see Metcalfe and Dolan, 2012, featured in this special issue). The paper concludes with the identification of several aspects that can be prioritized in the definition of research agenda in travel behaviour.

This paper has sought to offer an insight into some of the challenges and opportunities associated with theory and evidence emerge from behavioural economics, its roots in other behavioural sciences, and its wider applications to a range of policy contexts. What is evident is the considerable diversity of factors that are likely to explain systematic deviations of human behaviour from the predictions of rational models, and the potential application of contextual design and other insights emerge from behavioural economics to the design of behaviour change measures and policies in transport through choice architecture and ‘nudges’. However, Avineri and Goodwin (2010) argue that one of the limitations of the ‘nudge’ strategy is that being designed to influence individuals’ behaviour through intuitive and impulsive processes of the automatic system they do not address the fundamental problem of behavioural change. Nudges work best on unintentional/automatic behaviours within a controlled context, however they are not designed to change the decision making process of the reflective system. They do not make an objective improvement to the choice set or to the choices’ attributes and utilities. Moreover, not like some of the traditional soft measures, they do not lead directly to a real change to the individual’s knowledge, attitudes or values towards sustainable travel choices. It might thus be difficult to maintain and achieve long-term and sustainable behavioural change just by designing measures that are based on the nudge approach, as without promoting and maintaining sustainable travel behaviour through utilities and attitudes, their effects are likely to be cancelled. Moreover, it is not possible to control the overall context in which nudge initiatives are introduced – and behavioural change achieved by choice architecture might be easily offset by unintended effects. It seems almost self-evident that an approach which recognises boundedly rational as well as rational and planned determinants of behaviour must be able to give better predictions and better insights into how behaviour change works; policy interventions can therefore be more successful as well as less intrusive if nudge interventions are included in a package of measures to influence both the automatic and the reflective decision making systems, pulling behaviour change consistently in the same direction. The promise of behavioural economics and choice architecture might be primarily in improving the design of bigger initiatives, that is to add ‘nudges’ to improve or speed up the effects rather than as a replacement for other interventions. The incorporation of principles and behavioural notions used in behavioural economics in travel behaviour models, and the use of choice architecture in the design of planning and policy measures, have already become subjects of professional and academic debate and undoubtedly will remain such in the future. There is a need to outline a research agenda regarding climate change mitigation, behaviour change and behaviour economics. The following is a first attempt to identify several priorities for such an agenda. − There is a need for critical evaluation of the robustness of evidence and findings that have emerged from the study of human behaviour in decision making environments associated with economic and financial contexts to travel behaviour contexts. − Many travel behaviour models apply stated preferences methods and use surveys in which participants make decisions based on choice rather than experience. The behaviours captured by such methodologies might be biased towards the predictions of models assuming rational behaviour, and might not reflect choice patterns emerge from adaptive learning, feedback effects, and habitual behaviour. More research can focus on the dynamic environment of travel choice behaviour. − Awareness of transport modellers, planners and policy makers to behavioural economics theory and evidence among is limited. Dissemination of research findings to these communities, and the incorporation of relevant contents in the curriculum of academic and professional studies in transport might help in raising the awareness to the potential use of behavioural economics in applied transport contexts. − In mainstream modelling of travel behaviours, most of the choice attributes can relate to hedonistic goals (feeling better right now) or individual gain goals (protecting or improving one’s resources) of goal framing. As normative goals might have an important role in explaining sustainable behaviours, the incorporation of attributes associated with pro-social and pro-environmental values could be further explored. − Further investigation of contextual effects on individual perceptions and choices of sustainable travel alternatives; generally, there is a need to develop tools that might inform the design and evaluation of effective information formats. − There is wide evidence of diversity and heterogeneity in people responses to behavioural change measures in transport. Individuals’ behaviours might be traded-off in the aggregated level, leading to so-called ‘asymmetric churns’, making it difficult to influence, observe and monitor behaviour change. A specific attention should be given to the notion of heterogeneity in travel choice making and in travellers’ responses to interventions. As interventions must look quite closely at the specifics of different people, for whom messages and services will need to be different (understanding cultural and geographic contexts could be specifically relevant here). Segmentation studies of travel behaviours have focused on socio-demographic and attitudes towards sustainable behaviours. One possible direction for future research is in explaining some of the heterogeneity in travel choices by behavioural economics notions (i.e. heterogeneity in loss aversion), if there is evidence of their significance in explaining, a segmentation approach might be useful in identifying which segments are more likely to change their behaviour if targeted by interventions that apply specific key principles from behavioural economics. − Above all, it should be emphasised that the nature of travellers’ choice making and the success of behaviour change measures are ultimately empirical issues. In this respect, in order to reach better descriptive models of travel choice behaviour, and to validate the effectiveness of measures design based on insights from behavioural economics, more empirical studies (including large-scale, panel and field studies in more natural environments) should be conducted, and measures designed based on behavioural economics should be systematically evaluated.