Persuasive technology and direct messaging for achieving modal shift in urban areas

气候变化是城市面临的主要能源挑战。该项目将设计和测试一种数字干预措施，通过满足最终用户需求并将其转向低能耗交通模式，使城市交通（以及城市）更具可持续性。这些模式还具有其他优势，如改善空气质量和增加身体活动，这也是具有大规模公共卫生影响的重大城市政策挑战。城市拥堵还损害了城市的经济绩效，降低了场所质量和居民福祉。因此，数字干预试验的规模将足以使其结果用于对城市规模的交通能源使用和相互关联因素的影响进行全系统分析。作为系统分析的一部分，该项目还将收集有关汽车通勤嵌入式实践的定性数据（例如隐性或显性的雇主期望或家庭层面的限制），并受当地交通属性和政策的影响。数字干预将在爱丁堡进行测试，与区域交通伙伴关系（RTP）的讨论表明需要解决大型雇主员工的汽车通勤问题。RTP表示愿意为该项目提供实物支持，包括与其官员一起工作的短期时间，并为接触关键利益攸关方提供便利。成功的候选人将在研究的最初几个月确定第二个试验城市。该项目将建立在由主管Kate Pangbourne博士（ADAPT）领导的EPSRC LWEC挑战项目的成功结果的基础上。ADAPT正在创建现有旅行行为改变通信的数据集，从论证和话语的角度分析内容，并通过实验测试主要论点，以揭示旅行态度或个性是否会影响旅行行为改变常用论点的可能有效性。博士学位主题将建立在现有知识的基础上，通过设计一个消息传递和模式跟踪数字工具，使有前途的论证形式在现实世界中的测试。本项目的目标是：1）通过简单的个性化论证，证明是否可以激发和支持促使个人出行方式选择更具可持续性的内在动机; 2）在两个城市使用随机对照试验方法，衡量对实际出行行为的影响。本项目的方法旨在突出跨学科，并将培养学生综合以下领域见解的知识和技能：移动的和说服性技术，行为改变的心理学和实践，统计学，试验评估，定性方法，系统分析和交通规划和政策。

Climate change is a major energy challenge for cities. This project will design and test a digital intervention that will make urban transport (and hence cities) more sustainable through addressing end user demand and steering it to lower energy transport modes. These modes also have other advantages, for air quality improvement and increasing physical activity, which are also significant urban policy challenges with large-scale public health implications. Urban congestion also undermines the economic performance of cities and reduces quality of place and residents' well-being. Therefore, the digital intervention trial will be sufficiently large to enable the results to be used in a whole-systems analysis of the impact on transport energy use and interlinked factors at city-scale. As part of systems analysis, the project will also gather qualitative data on the situated practices in which car-commuting is embedded (such as tacit or explicit employer expectations or household-level constraints) and shaped by local transport attributes and policies. The digital intervention will be tested in Edinburgh, where discussion with the Regional Transport Partnership (RTP) has indicated a need to address car commuting by the staff of large employers. The RTP has indicated a willingness to provide in-kind support this project, including short periods of time working alongside their officers and facilitating access to key stakeholders. The successful candidate will be expected to identify a second trial city during the early months of the study.The project will build on success of the results emerging from an EPSRC LWEC Challenge project led by the supervisor, Dr Kate Pangbourne (ADAPT). ADAPT is creating a dataset of existing travel behavior change communications, analyzing the content from an argumentation and discourse perspective and testing the principal arguments experimentally to uncover whether travel attitudes or personality affect the likely effectiveness of the commonly used arguments for travel behavior change. The PhD topic will build on existing knowledge by designing a message delivery and modal tracking digital tool to enable the testing of promising forms of argumentation in a real-world context. The objectives of this part of the project are:1) to show whether intrinsic motivations to make individual travel mode choices more sustainable can be stimulated and supported using simple personalized arguments; and2) to measure the effect on actual travel behavior using a randomized control trial approach in two cities.The project approach is intended to be highlight interdisciplinary and will develop the student's knowledge and skills in synthesizing insights across the following fields: mobile and persuasive technology, the psychology and practice of behavior change, statistics, trial evaluation, qualitative methodologies, systems analysis and transport planning and policy.