[sustran] [World Streets] Op-Ed: The choice challenge (Try nudging)

[The Editor]

[http://www.publicservice.co.uk]
‘Nudging’ travel behaviour change through the design of information
systems…

- Erel Avineri, University of the West of England

Today’s travellers have a wealth of information at their disposal to
help plan and execute their journeys. The availability of travel
information to the public has changed dramatically in recent years with
the increasing use of the internet and mobile communications. Millions
of portable satellite navigation systems are sold every year in the UK
and Europe. The number of people using web-based journey planners to
inform their journeys is increasing. The rapid technological
developments in the field of Advanced Traveller Information Services
(ATIS) demand a greater understanding of what part this technology is
now playing in relation to travel behaviour, and how such systems can
be designed to benefit both individuals and transport systems as a
whole.

It has been generally argued that when making choices between
alternative transport options, travellers behave in a reasonably
rational way, and can be approximated to act according to their
interests, as long as they are provided with complete and accurate
information on each of the alternatives – they try to minimise money
and other costs, and maximise their utilities from the journeys they
are making. Due to the size and complexity of the transport system,
choosing between alternative routes, alternative modes of transport
(car, bus, train, cycling, etc.) or the timing of their journeys is not
always an easy task for travellers.

Providing travellers with reliable and updated information on travel
options is therefore acknowledged as having the potential to improve
travellers’ choices in ways that are beneficial for individuals and
society. Stemming from its 1998 Transport White Paper, the Department
for Transport has given, and continues to give, notable attention to
traveller information systems as part of its approach to transport
policy.

Individual travellers are commonly seen as rational human beings who,
through choice making, maximise their utilities. However, insights and
(theoretical) understandings from psychology and behavioural economics
are now emerging through the literature to paint a more complex picture
of decision-making processes. Empirical studies provide much evidence
that in real life, the behaviour of travellers is typified by bounded
rationality. Travellers’ limited cognitive resources have a strong
effect on their use of information. Recent evidence showed that even
when provided with explicit information on their travel choices,
travellers turn out to interpret and value this information in a way
that systematically violates the assumptions of rational behaviour. But
it is not just the content of information that influences our choices.
Inspired by the work of cognitive psychologists, researchers at UWE
Bristol found that travellers are heavily influenced by context, ie.
the manner in which travel information is being presented.

Thaler and Sunstein ( from the University of Chicago) argue in favour
of the so-called Libertarian Paternalism approach, as a way to help
people make the ‘right’ choices without restricting their freedom of
choice. In their recent book (‘Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health,
Wealth, and Happiness’), they suggest the incorporation of small
features in the environment to attract people’s attention and highlight
the ‘right’ choices for them and alter their behaviour. The art and
science of ‘nudges’ could inspire the further design of ATIS, to help
travellers make better choices. The following are a few (out of many)
examples that illustrate such nudges.

Defaults: a default is the option that individuals receive if they do
not explicitly request something different. Defaults have strong
influence on behaviour – and they tend to become a habit. Some journey
planners provide travel information on more than one mode of transport.
In the design of a journey planner, travellers could be provided by
default with information about car transport, even if they are planning
to use public transport – this default might increase the
attractiveness of car transport.

On the other hand, setting public transport as the default mode could
nudge people to consider this as the first option. No matter how
defaults are set, it is important not to restrict the choices available
for the traveller – making information on all alternatives available.

Framing and ‘loss aversion’: People tend to feel and behave differently
when information about their choices is presented (or ‘framed’) as
gains or losses. The following illustrates three possible ways of
presenting the same information on two commuting choices.


Under the rational choice model, the format of the information should
not matter. However, since people are more sensitive to losses, they
might find the cycling option specifically attractive in the third
alternative. This is a rather simple example of how the designers of
travel information systems can help people to make more sustainable
travel choices simply by choosing a specific format to present
information about time (and other attributes) of the alternative
choices.

Salience: A specific challenge ATIS designers are faced with is how to
provide travellers with information on the environmental costs of their
journeys. A growing number of travellers are already aware of, and have
concerns about, the greenhouse emissions they generate. When informed
about environmental impacts, they might make sustainable choices.
However, many of the negative impacts of our travel choices are not
salient. For example, it is difficult to the driver to easily imagine
the air pollution and climate change caused by carbon emissions.

Carbon emissions are invisible to travellers; it is therefore difficult
for them to associate their travel behaviour with environmental costs.
Without feedback, a behavioural change is less likely. Providing
drivers with daily information on their carbon emissions might make
them ‘visible’, and could make it easier for them to do the right
thing. Recent research reports on the effect of in-vehicle data
recorders on drivers’ behaviour; this on-board technology collects and
records information on the movement, control and performance of the
vehicle. It was found that drivers, through the provision of daily
feedback on their performance, tend to improve their safety behaviour.
Using the same technology to provide drivers with environmental costs,
against some targets or against previous performance, could provide
them with a psychological incentive to change their behaviour.

The effectiveness of travel information systems may be enhanced if more
consideration and emphasis is given to the design of the information
context.
The libertarian paternalism approach is not offered as an alternative
to other measures to influence travel choices. In some cases, synergy
between the pricing and the soft intervention by nudges could be an
effective policy. ‘Getting the prices right’ by taxes and subsidies
could be the first step of a transport policy; however, the effect of
pricing policies on behavioural change is limited – partly because of
individuals’ bounded rationality. Travellers do not always associate
their behaviour with the relevant costs and this slows down the process
of behavioural change. Nudges can help individuals to overcome
cognitive biases, highlight the better choices, and increase the size
and the speed of behavioural change – without restricting choices or
limiting travellers’ freedom of choice.

In liberal democratic regimes, where the public and political
acceptability of regulation and enforcement are low, the libertarian
paternalism approach, through the nudging of travellers, could be one
of the most promising approaches to deal with the need for a radical
and urgent behavioural change. The last 10 years have seen a rapid
evolution of the field of travel information provision. The
technological level of today’s systems, the widespread availability of
travel information services, together with the insights from
behavioural sciences, makes the incorporation of nudges into travel
information systems more easy and cost-effective than ever. This could
be the trigger to achieve the behavioural change we urgently need.

Dr Erel Avineri, Erel.Avineri at uwe.ac.uk
Reader in Travel Behaviour, Centre for Transport Society,
University of the West of England, Bristol
This article appears in the current edition of The Science & Technology
Review, issue 2, pp. 133-134. Published by PSCA International.
www.publicservice.co.uk. World Streets thanks them for permission to
reproduce the full text of the article here.

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Posted By The Editor to World Streets at 5/29/2009 06:32:00 AM
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