عوامل پذیرش فنی و تغییرات رفتاری برای اقدامات صرفه جویی در انرژی حمل و نقل در پاسخ به تغییرات آب و هوایی

Energy conservation can be achieved through the adoption of technical measures or the changing of one's behaviour. A survey of 201 Malaysian public personnel was conducted to examine the predictors of these two types of transport energy-saving measures in response to climate change. The results indicated that there were significant differences in the relative acceptability of both behavioural measures with respect to gender, level of education, income, knowledge of climate change and attitude. Gender, knowledge of causes of climate change and personal norm were predictors for the acceptability of technical measures, while perceived efficacy and personal norm were the factors that influenced the acceptability of behavioural measures. The results also indicated that distinctions ought to be made between technology adoption and behaviour modifications that require lifestyle changes when assessing pro-environmental intent behaviour. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Transportation is one of the major human activities that presently relies almost entirely on petroleum oil, a type of fossil fuel that cannot be renewed and regenerated. Fossil fuels, such as oil, coal and gas, provide 82% of the world's energy requirement and have been identified as the largest single contributor to increase carbon dioxide (CO2) (IPCC, 2007). Furthermore, CO2 has been identified as one of the main greenhouse gases (GHGs) causing global warming. Among the modes of transport, road transport is the largest user of energy in all countries (IEA, 2009), including Malaysia, where it accounts for almost 31% of the CO2 emissions (Azman et al., 2006). Malaysia is the 26th largest source of GHG emission in the world, a position that places it within the ranks of industrialised nations (United Nation Statistics Division, 2010). The CO2 emissions of Malaysia are relatively high compared to the world average and other Southeast Asian countries. The challenge is how to cater to the rising demand of transportation needs, while, at the same time, reducing the impact of transport on the environment.

The main purpose of the present study is to enhance understanding of how demographic factors and psychological determinants independently and jointly explain the acceptability of transport energy-saving measures. It is of particular interest to identify whether acceptance of technical adoption and behavioural change to energy-saving measures in response to climate change have similar or different influencing factors. Understanding these factors is important in order to derive intervention strategies to enhance both types of energy-saving measures so as to reduce the rebound effect and decrease GHG emissions from the transport sector in the long term. 6.1. Socio-demographic predictors of acceptability of transport energy-saving measures The findings appear to indicate that individuals with a specific socio-demographic background have a distinct inclination to a specific type of energy-saving measure. The acceptability of adopting technical measures is found to be more favourable among those males who have higher income and are more educated, equipped with better knowledge of climate change, have a positive attitude, strong moral convictions and believe in their perceived ability to exercise energy-saving actions. As expected, the acceptance of technical measures is higher for the males as they are usually influenced by perceptions of usefulness (Venkatesh and Morris, 2000). In order to entice female individuals into procuring energy-saving devices and appliances, the provision of product information may need to be comprehensive so as to encompass both their usefulness and ease of use. This marketing strategy may enhance the willingness of both genders to adopt technical measures as in the study by Venkatesh and Morris (2000) in which both found that men's technology usage decisions are more strongly influenced by their perceptions of usefulness while women are more strongly influenced by perceptions of ease of use. Future studies could explore how product attributes influence the consumers' willingness to adopt them. With respect to income, those in the higher income bracket would view the capital risk arising from a product more favourably than those with lesser financial resources (Martinez et al., 1998), find it less problematic to provide the initial investment (Poortinga et al., 2003) and thus are better technology adopters. A similar finding was reported by Poortinga et al. (2003) in which acceptability of technical improvements in transport energy saving differed significantly between the levels of income group. It is therefore likely that the adoption of energy-efficient products can be induced if they are competitively priced against other options as income by itself was found to positively influence technology acceptance. A study by Morinaga and Aini (2011) found that price is the most important purchasing criterion for Malaysian consumers. Inducement of changes in behaviour or uptake of new technological energy-saving devices/products may be successful, but only if there are fiscal incentives or through mandatory energy policies and regulations. Education-wise, the findings are consistent with the studies by Straughan and Roberts (1999) and Magnusson et al. (2001), in which higher educated persons are more likely to purchase green products. On the other hand, behavioural measures aimed at reducing energy use are also found to be more acceptable to people with high income. These findings seem to imply that different strategies are needed to entice consumers of different socio-demographic backgrounds to adopt specific transport energy-saving measures. 6.2. Predictors of acceptability of transport energy-saving measures All the psychological variables (attitude towards energy conservation, personal norm and perceived efficacy) examined correlate positively with acceptability of both technical and behavioural measures, albeit with different strengths. In general, the correlation values are higher for acceptance to technical as compared to the behavioural measures. However, with respect to knowledge, only knowledge of causes directly influences the acceptability of both types of transport energy-saving measure. The finding is consistent with Bord et al. (2000) and O'Connor et al. (1999), who found that knowledge about the causes of climate change positively influences behavioural intention. It seems that having accurate knowledge about the causes of climate change may induce an individual to take appropriate steps to overcome the problem. Perceived efficacy and personal norm were significant predictors for acceptance of behavioural transport energy-saving measures. We would therefore expect that individuals with strong moral obligation and belief that their actions will produce a positive effect towards mitigating climate change (strong self-efficacy) would be willing to embrace energy-saving efforts even though they are usually associated with additional effort or a decreased level of comfort. However, it was found that the motivational drivers for acceptance of technical adoption seem to differ somewhat from those that require behavioural changes. Gender, knowledge of causes and personal norm were found to significantly contribute to predicting the acceptability of adoption of technical measures. It is interesting to note that personal norm is the strongest predictor variable and influences both the dependent variables. Independently, demographic factors, such as income and gender, influence the acceptability of transport energy-saving measures, while, jointly with psychological factors, income becomes irrelevant even in purchasing/adopting transport energy-saving technologies. Although it was expected that income levels would positively influence acceptability levels because of their higher marginal utility of money, the empirical evidence shows otherwise. The present finding lends additional support to the findings of Rienstra et al. (1999) and Schade and Schlag (2003) in which income level did not influence support for transport pricing measures. Gender, however, is a strong predictor of acceptability of technical measures. With greater preference for technology adoption by the respondents, encouragement for adoption of energy-saving technologies should be targeted at both genders, particularly the females, who were found to be less favourable. 6.3. Conclusion and implications The results appear to suggest that distinctions need to be made between technology consumption/adoption and behaviour modifications that require lifestyle changes when assessing pro-environmental intent behaviour. Differences in individual psychological traits and socio-demographic characteristics have to be considered in order to achieve the maximum effect in enticing consumers to adopt specific transport energy-saving measures. This finding is important, as many public education schemes for enhancing energy-saving consumption failed despite incentives and policy measures (Faiers et al., 2007). Ideally, both measures, namely, adoption of energy-saving devices and behavioural change, should be engaged simultaneously by the public in order to drastically reduce CO2 emissions. Comprehension of the causes of climate change seems to be pertinent in fostering mitigation efforts by individuals, as shown by its significant relationship with the acceptance of technology adoption. Emphasis on strengthening moral obligations and strategies to foster public sense of efficacy to reduce energy should be made as they are found to be motivators of transport energy-saving behaviour. The promotion of behavioural change should further be facilitated by the development of transport policy measures to encourage the shift to other transport modes, such as trains and buses, as well as to develop ‘soft’ policy measures to encourage walking or cycling (Chapman, 2007). Public transportation in Malaysia has been recognised as one of the critical agendas of the nation, as presently, the share of Malaysian public urban transportation is a mere 16.4%. Due to the lack of an efficient means of public transport, three million cars enter the capital city, Kuala Lumpur, daily. Various strategies have been implemented and some are in the pipeline to improve the capacity, efficiency and integration within and between rail, buses and taxis. Since the inception of a Commission for Land Public Transport and the inclusion of improvement of public transportation as one of the six National Key Result Areas (NKRAs), there has been a slight improvement in the ridership on public transport, particularly in the urban centres (Idris, 2012). All socio-demographic/economic variables are insignificant factors except for gender, which predicts technical acceptance measures. For psychological variables, personal norm and perceived efficacy were significant predictors with personal norm having the most predictive power for acceptance of both technical and behavioural measures. The results lend support to a study by Steg et al. (2005), who found that it explained almost 30% of the variance in the acceptability to reduce household energy levels. The results suggest that it may be important for policy or intervention strategies to target psychological variables (e.g., tailored education campaigns to enhance moral values and self-efficacy/beliefs in one's ability to produce the desired effect, i.e., reducing energy use in mitigating climate change); however, changing one's belief and attitude takes time as it was found to have limited success in affecting behavioural change in the short term (Dietz, Stern, 2003). Focussing on the development of appropriate policies to induce purchasing or adopting energy-efficient devices or green technology would probably yield faster results. For example, the sales of hybrid cars in Malaysia increased over 2000% to 8334 units in 2011 from 328 units sold a year earlier due to the ongoing excise duty exemptions on such vehicles (Mahalingam, 2012). In conclusion, the results indicate that acceptance of technology measures and behavioural measures in transport energy saving are influenced by different predictors. Generally, they both have stronger correlations to psychological factors than socio-demographic factors. The dominating influence of psychological variables was found to be similar to other TDM acceptability studies (Schade and Schlag, 2003 and Jaensirisak et al., 2005). The predictors that were included in the study are found to forecast the acceptability of technical measures (27%) more than the acceptability of behavioural measures (12%). 6.4. Limitations of the study The present study has some limitations, specifically with respect to the measurement and generalisation of the study. It should be noted that the present study measured the attitude towards energy conservation. Although the findings indicate significant correlations between attitude and both measures, it might yield better results if the specific attitude towards the behaviour (i.e., transport energy saving) is gauged instead, as suggested by Bamberg (2003). In addition, knowledge was assessed using three response scales of ‘true’, ‘false’ and ‘do not know’. The current measure may not necessarily reflect the true objective knowledge possessed by the respondents, as there may be some guesswork. However, this is minimised by the inclusion of the ‘do not know’ category. The present study focussed on those who work in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. Differences among locations (such as congestion, government policies and infrastructure) may influence the results, as Jaensirisak et al. (2005) found that there were differences concerning the acceptability of road pricing schemes among different cities in the United Kingdom. As such, generalising the findings to other locations is warranted. There was also an over-represented (>90%) proportion of the Malay ethnicity in the sample (a normal proportion for the public service department in the country) as according to the 2010 census data, the proportion of the population is 67.4% Malays, 24.6% Chinese, 3% Indians and7% other races. This further limits the generalisation of the results to the Malaysian population in general. The results of this study suggest that the (individual) psychological factors examined could explain a significant but modest amount of variance in the acceptance of energy-saving measures. It is apparent that technology adoption choice and determination to behave in a certain way are explained by a broader range of other contextual and external factors. The understanding of the energy-saving behaviour of the public revolves around three central factors, that is, the individual, the product and the environmental context (social, cultural and policies) (Friers et al., 2007). In order to advance the model of consumer behaviour theories and policy decision processes, causal relationships among these other interacting factors could further be explored in future research.