For many drivers, sustainable policies that don’t require a lifestyle switch (like electric vehicles) might be easier to adopt than other policies. With an electric vehicle future not solving traffic and safety issues, what does this mean for transportation?
There’s a gap between people understanding that they need to change part of their lifestyle and actually getting them to do it. The best example of this is healthy eating, so much so that it’s society’s inside joke with itself. (Just Google “diet memes.”)
Unfortunately, our inability to change our behavior doesn’t just hurt our personal wellbeing. When it comes to transportation, our behaviors negatively impact everybody’s mobility.
“That’s not for me” or “I’ll get around to that eventually” are two conversation-ending phrases that make reducing single-occupancy vehicle trips feel impossible. Those same people may acknowledge that people should drive alone less, but that’s referring to other people.
When people have an abundance of options, such as in many parts of the Washington, DC, region, it can be confounding that they would choose to sit in traffic instead of take the Metro, even when they have to wait for the next train. On top of creating options, transportation planners and advocates must understand the psychology of the choices we make.
Left to their own devices, travelers fall victim to what Robert Gifford, of the University of Victoria, calls the “Dragons of Inaction.” Gifford explains a range of psychological barriers – the Dragons – that we have evolutionarily constructed for ourselves that, while they made sense when humans did not rule the food chain, lead to irrational decision-making in the modern world.
Many dragons include those who deny the need for change, but others help to illuminate the unexpected choices of those who care and have good intentions but fail to follow through on a personal level.
The dragons we face
The growing market for plug-in electric cars represents how these dragons can take control. Even though the cars do not emit pollution while on the road, advertisers gloss over the fact that charging the batteries typically comes from fossil fuel-fired power plants. Considering the environmental impact of energy production, electric cars may not be as green as consumers are led to believe.
Yet getting that second point across to consumers is a much heavier lift than the allure of zero tailpipe emissions. Because there are so many claims about some cars being good for the environment, consumers that acknowledge environmental issues – addressing those who don’t accept certain things requires a different approach entirely – will default to the easiest of options that make them think they have made a difference.
When “doing better” requires no fundamental change to a person’s lifestyle, it becomes all the more alluring. This further entrenches those consumers’ behavior because they believe they have made their impact, building a higher barrier to change. It’s easy to envision switching from a smoke-spewing beater car to a sleek electric bus, but not so much from a private, sleek electric car.
When “doing better” requires no fundamental change to a person’s lifestyle, it becomes all the more alluring.
“Environmental numbness” helps to explain this evaluation process by suggesting that an overabundance of stimuli – in this case studies, advertisements, incentive structures, popular but unfounded opinions – means consumers can only select a few resources to inform their decisions. As a result, most people will fall into the ruts of what they know and have “researched” through experience.
Making environmental numbness even worse is that people who take one marginal sustainable action fall victim to tokenism: many will feel that they are doing their part for the environment by buying electric cars and stop adjusting their behavior at that point. This is a key sticking point where, as Gifford writes, “pro-environmental intent may not correspond with pro-environmental impact.”
Gifford highlights the “rebound effect,” in which an individual negatively offsets their own pro-climate actions, such as buying a more fuel-efficient car and then increasing the miles they drive. By feeling that they have done good, some people may, in fact, worsen their actions without realizing it.
Transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft contribute to this phenomenon as well, convincing consumers that they have reduced their carbon footprint by electing to take a pooled instead of solo ride. But the carbon impact of their ride depends on what mode that customer would have used if not the shared Uber or Lyft ride: someone who would have driven their own car alone or someone who would have taken transit (or not taken the trip at all).
Overall, findings are mixed about the effects that TNCs have had on traffic, but some researchers have found that they increase vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in many cities, and therefore worsen congestion and pollution. Yet consumers and officials buy into the companies’ talking points despite the inherently less efficient nature of ride-hailing compared to mass transit, especially the options that emulate actual mass transit.
As a result, if transit users shift to ride-hailing, they are limiting the positive externalities of living a car-free life.
Gifford highlights another example that beleaguers transit advocates: car ownership. Once someone has invested in a car, they are incentivized to keep using it, and the idea of moving along to something else is a difficult mental hurdle to clear.
Parking is the same thing. Monthly plans for parking spaces incentivize commuters to keep driving into work in order to maximize the value of what they have already paid for.
Car ownership and parking policy show how, even though “economists point out that the rational choice is to dispense with the sunk cost and move forward, most people choose instead to hold on to the sunk cost investment, at least until its disadvantages become too painful,” according to Gifford.
People are irrational, and our current transportation network reinforces this state.
Flip the script
The fact that most people drive alone, worsening traffic for themselves and polluting the planet in the process, shows that it’s not enough to make people aware of an issue to get them to stop. Our brains work against us in a number of ways, even when we know we need to change. Knowing why this happens – addressing the dragons of inaction – can help planners develop strategies to overcome humanity’s humanity.
Considering the psychological hurdles humans face in adapting their behaviors, it’s necessary to make sustainable transportation the best option in the most obvious way, and make choosing the best option the easiest choice, just as the perceived convenience of driving oneself door to door appears that way now.
We have to make sustainable transportation options the best choices for people to make.
There are a number of strategies currently in play that acknowledge that people choose what’s easiest and plan accordingly. In Amsterdam, planners craft the built environment so that driving alone is difficult and an irrational choice. In bikeshare systems, operators are introducing gamification to incentivize biking more in certain areas.
And to overcome the barriers of adopting entirely new modes, communities can learn from Uber and Lyft, which have been incredibly successful in recruiting new customers by offering discounted or free rides for a trial period. This “hook” helps riders understand how ride-hailing works. If transit can model this strategy, more travelers would likely choose the bus or train at least some of the time.
Finally, Gifford talks about a lack of “place attachment” as one more impediment to caring about change. If planners and agencies can involve community members and invest them in the process of shaping their environment and the options within it, they will be more attached and likely to seek behaviors that take care of place. So while there are myriad reasons for people not to change their behavior for the better, those same barriers can be turned into positive forces by understanding how they work.
This article is the first piece in our new series exploring the connections between behavioral economics and transportation. This week, we’ll be breaking down behavioral economics research to understand why people make the transportation decisions they do – and how we can build a transportation network that works for everyone. Click the image to see the whole series.