Behaviour Change

Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) is supporting the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) to update its Local Transport Plan (LTP). We have developed a draft Core Strategy that proposes a new vision for travel in the West Midlands where people can thrive without having to drive or own a car.

The Core Strategy sets out how the LTP’s aims for travel are dependent on behavioural change towards more sustainable travel patterns and how the policy actions we deliver shape the options available to people and businesses, and their perceptions and experiences of them. It is in this way that we can change behaviours for the better.

The Core Strategy is also clear that to achieve our aims and vision – to change behaviours without compromising what people can access – simultaneous measures would be required to:

• Enable people to travel by more sustainable alternatives by investing in measures that support better access to what people need via these alternatives; and
• Manage demand by discouraging the behaviours we want to do less of using physical measures (such as allocating less space to particular vehicles), and regulatory measures (such as increasing the price of travel by particular means or restricting access to particular roads).

There are consequences to avoiding measures that manage demand as this constrains our ability to improve accessibility via better alternatives. These consequences are explored in the Core Strategy Appendix: Tailoring Strategy.

There is widespread awareness and support of the need to manage demand, but such measures can often divisive. This is why the Core Strategy sets out that whilst we will promote measures to manage demand insofar as they support the aims of the LTP, commitment to deliver such measures has to be conditional on public support, requiring us to engage with the public to help them make informed choices over how the transport system is governed.

The benefits we are targeting from a better transport system will be achieved by focusing on six ‘Big Moves’ which relate to the avoid, shift, improve framework. Making progress against these will require a sustained effort over 20 years or more.

This Big Move is all about how we will:

• Support behaviour change through promotion of effective policies
• Work with the public to understand the benefits of these policies and the consequences of not delivering them
• Shape and deliver our plans with the public around a common understanding and consensus on local appetite for change.

The West Midlands should become a place where no matter where you live you do not need to own a car to live a full life, and if you cannot afford to own a car you are not excluded from everything the region has to offer.

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For most of our residents and businesses, travelling or moving goods using a petrol or diesel engine motor vehicle feels like the only choice available, even if they do not want or cannot afford to own one.  Those who do not own a vehicle are excluded from many activities and opportunities.

The lifestyles of many of our residents have changed, they do not need to travel as often because more of their daily activities can be done from home or close to where they live, and more goods/services arrive to them.  

And it’s not just that more of what people need is closer by, it’s also that travelling around their local area is more rewarding because we’ve created an environment where walking, wheeling, cycling or scooting is safe, prioritized and convenient.  

But it’s not just about local living, people find that more is accessible by reliable public transport, with more opportunities found close to centres and along key transit corridors, and it is accessible by reliable and available public transport.

Cars still provide the most flexible way to travel but they are needed less often. It might feel less convenient than before to jump in the car for a trip around the corner but that’s because of the trade-offs we’ve all chosen to make to reshape our streets to support other forms of transport. And with car clubs available fewer households will need to own a car.

Businesses make fewer journeys when delivering their goods and services because AI technology is creating the most optimal routes, and all their vehicles are now zero emissions.  Business travel is reduced overall because more work and meetings can be done remotely

The West Midlands should become a place where no matter where you live you do not need to own a car to live a full life, and if you cannot afford to own a car you are not excluded from everything the region has to offer.

Although people and businesses make decisions all the time that affect and determine their travel behaviour, those choices are made in a complex “choice environment”. That environment hugely affects and determines which options are most advantageous to individuals as they make decisions. There is growing consensus that we need to travel more sustainably, but when it comes to making an individual decision, the sustainable options are often not the most advantageous.

Why would I leave my car at home and get the bus if I’m already paying to own, maintain, and insure the car and the cost of fuel is less than the cost of a fare and the bus will take longer… I’d love to live near to a train station that takes me to work but I can’t afford those houses… Why would I unload all my deliveries onto e-cargo bikes if it’s more cost effective to send around a van.

Even if an individual decides they want to be altruistic and change their behaviour (in a way that might put themselves at a disadvantage), how can they be sure that other will also take the same step. As things stand many people don’t have the ability to make personal sacrifices like this when they’re having to focus on simply making ends meet.

The choice environment is a cumulative result of many choices, by many actors. It is shaped by decisions that have already been made as well as decisions that we make in the present.

It is influenced by how developers and planners built our urban environment. It is influenced by how other members of the public travel. It is influenced by the rules and regulations that govern our roads. It is influenced by the cost of services and products. It is influenced by much more. And all of these affect each other. And all of this is tied up with our culture, aspirations and expectations.

So whilst in one sense everyone’s choices affect what travel options are more or less advantageous, individuals by themselves have relatively limited ability to shape that choice environment.

On a Thursday morning, an individual can choose to ride a bike, but they can’t chose for it to be safe outside to do so.

But in our democracy, citizens do have the ability to shape their choices through public policy. This is why the LTP and its policies are important; it can offer the potential for citizens to influence and inform decisions to make transport alternatives better.

Collectively, citizens can work with decision makers to decide how to shape the transport system. However, doing this requires them to make trade-offs to improve the choices we want them to make more of, often at the expense of the choices we want them to make less of.

For example, promoting walking and wheeling, cycling and scooting, and public transport often requires us to reallocate space from, constrain access, and reduce speed of general traffic – reducing traffic and ensuring we prioritise our use of space for the key components of our Vision for Travel.

This does not mean that the car is not an option to make journeys, but it does require  measures that would make it less convenient and slower particularly for shorter local trips.

There are difficult trade-offs to make as we transition from one relationship with transport to another. This requires consensus that sacrifices are worth the gains.

We are a public authority. We are accountable to and directed by a political coalition of elected leaders of different parties from across the West Midlands. We are informed by the collective professional experience and knowledge of policy experts, and the lived experience and knowledge of the citizens and businesses we engage with.

We deliver policies with a democratic mandate from our leaders but which have to be built on a strong foundation of public consensus.

We are confident that there is agreement and consensus in the aims of the LTP, but many of the policies required to deliver these aims at scale are divisive.

We can promote these policies in so far as they support our aims but delivery requires consensus.

The issues and trade-offs we need to explore as we agree how we want to shape our streets are complex. They are complex in terms of the roles of multiple partners. They are complex in terms of the impacts on our transport system, and the society and economy it supports, and the environment on which it depends. They are complex in terms of the impacts on individuals, communities and businesses.

Better public engagement has to be the bedrock of this new LTP but we know that our capacity, capabilities and practices for public engagement need to improve if we are to be able to cut through the complexity of the issues, and help people engage and form and deliver their view on how we should act.

We need to engage citizens and businesses before critical decisions have been made.

Local government has substantial direct influence over transport behaviours through its powers in both transport and planning.

However, we aren’t the only public authorities with direct influence affecting transport in our area. For example, with transport crossing borders we also need to think about what our neighbours are doing. Transport in our area is affected by national infrastructure like motorways and railways that are controlled by national partners. Government not only sets the overarching legislative environment for transport in our area, it also has other levers like national fiscal policies and budget setting that affects transport in our area.

When thinking about what “policy levers” we can pull to influence behaviours, we need to think carefully about what our partners are doing and how our partners can help us – for example where there is a lever under someone else’s control that could more effectively create the impacts we want in our area.

We also need to think carefully about who our policies are affecting, what their motivations, needs and capabilities are to understand how they’re likely to react and be impacted.

Policies can result in unintended consequences so it’s always important to think about whether an action is likely to be successful given wider context.

But with transport being such a complex system, careful design of policies to change behaviour is a high challenge – with a lot of risk and reward.

Equity is at the heart of our motives for change. If we achieve our aims, the harmful impacts of transport and places will be reduced. We recognise that not all citizens can adopt sustainable travel practices for all of their trips, and we aim to support those who rely on the use of cars to move about the region, maintaining their right to and ensuring that they will be able to participate in society and our economy, and a better legacy will be secured for future generations.

However, even if our end goal is a fairer West Midlands, the process of change can have its own inequities. Sometimes communities that might stand to receive the greatest benefits can also face the biggest barriers in adapting.

The core strategy sets out an approach to avoid paralysis and to ensure a just transition. But this will be no simple task; it’s vital that we understand how we can help those who need it and support them through change.

With access to a car being at the core of one’s sense of independence, behaviour change will have to be gradual. A combination of motorised AND active travel / public transport is seen by the majority as a first step in transitioning towards a less car-dependent lifestyle, with many of those relying on cars already consciously making more room for active travel in their lives.

Cars are not expected to disappear, but the frequency of use and the types of vehicles people will drive are expected to be different in the future. Including smaller vehicles for personal use and larger vehicles for shared use, or environmentally friendly alternatives to current vehicles

There are also wider, structural changes focused on localising lifestyles and economies that are seen to contribute to a less car-dependent society. Some of these changes, such as “working from home” policies, have already been triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the scenario of there being no cars, reactions were often extreme and many felt they wouldn’t be able to go about their lifestyle in the way they currently do. A lot of emphasis was placed on not being able to see family / friends further afield or being able to get to remote places (such as countryside or tourist attractions). 

Delivery of our LTP requires elected members, planners, and citizens to work together effectively to shape our region.

As we have highlighted previously, we have broad agreement on aim and ambitions, but a lack of consensus on acceptable action. Leadership will help us move through this impasse to make coherent choices that recognise the trade-offs between what we want and what we will do. These trade-offs are explored in our LTP scenarios and places framework.

This will require appetite and willingness for the West Midlands to work together to understand our transport problems and design the solutions.

Leadership and action at a national will also be critical. We will need to continue to work with Government to make the case for intervention either a national level or where powers and funding can be devolved to allow the region take the right action locally.

Previous approaches to planning have involved “predict and provide” type thinking. In essence this is where we use forecasts of how we think people may behave in the future based on observations of the past and try to deliver infrastructure to accommodate this. This means that even though it’s been a long term aim to shift people’s behaviours towards more sustainable travel, often decisions have ran counter to this.

Road building is a controversial example of this. Models that we use for planning have long predicted future increases in car uses and associated traffic. This has led to delivering new capacity to accommodate more traffic on the roads. But if we achieve our aims, we should reduce traffic and have less car use, and so we would need less capacity for general traffic.

In addition, recent evidence also shows that modern behaviours are already diverting from those in the past and so many of the forecasts we use are based on the wrong assumptions.

Future behaviour is influenced by our decisions to govern the transport system. If we predict an increase in traffic and increase capacity for traffic, then we make certain that traffic will increase even if we don’t want it to.

If our plans can be self-fulfilling, and we can shape behaviours in this way, then we should avoid decisions that reinforce behaviours we wish to avoid and we should plan for the future behaviours we want instead.

A “decide and provide” approach is precisely this; instead of planning to enable predictions of behaviours we don’t want, we think about the behaviours we do want in a place in the future and create the environment that supports that.

What are predict and provide, and decide and provide?

A transport user hierarchy is a useful guide to test whether our plans are prioritising the kinds of behaviours and movements that best support our aims.

Hierarchies like the one we have created for our LTP, are not meant to be rigidly applied - in some places some levels of the hierarchy may be more or less relevant. However, it helps to methodically consider from our highest priority users to our lowest whether the focus of our programmes and the design of our schemes is conducive to the behaviours we want to increase and decrease to meet our aims.

The hierarchy we have created has been developed to compliment our vision for travel in the core strategy.

The better we can understand the people of the West Midlands – the better we understand their motivations, aspirations, values, needs and capabilities – the better we can develop, design and deliver policies to support them and target information to help them.

TfWM is already employing techniques from the private sector to understand consumers. Our traveller segmentation is one example of how we are doing this.

Providing a positive user experience is essential to achieving our vision for Travel. A user’s travel experience includes all phases of travel, from pre-planning, to walk or wheel to the door at a final destination.

TfWM is committed to addressing the user experience for all users of our transport system through actions to identify issues and opportunities related to people’s experiences and perceptions of ours and others’ transport services.

There are too many inconsistencies across the network and services in terms of quality and reliability, information provision and general integration between different transport options. This can cause stress for travellers and weaken their confidence in walk, wheel, cycle, scoot and ride mode travel.

Across all modes, what travellers value the most is service providers getting the basics right. This means reliable services that get people to their destination safely and on time.

Facilities should be clean, comfortable and safe. Travellers also need accurate real-time information, assistance and advice along the way, including when the network is experiencing disruption. Interchanges between trip stages by different services and modes should be easy and accessible.

They also need ways to pay for travel that give them the best possible value and flexibility they need across services and with changing plans.

By understanding who we are trying to influence and what their barriers & drivers are, we can use targeted interventions to encourage that particular person / population segmentation to be more sustainable, based on models, and methodologies that have been tested via our “Influencing Transport Lab”.

Our iterative approach means we will continue to learn and adapt as public perception and the transport sector evolves.

We want to be able to embed tested, evidence based behavioural interventions into all our projects and transport operations across Transport for West Midlands, as well as educate & equip local authorities / decision makers / other partners to be able to deliver interventions in different places and for different people that work.

The Influencing Transport Lab is to act as a centre of excellence for Influencing Behaviour Change in Transport, facilitated by Transport for West Midlands, Sponsored by the Department for Transport, especially for the benefit of nationwide local authorities and sub national government authorities.

It exists to answer the big questions:

1. Who responds best to which kinds of interventions and influences, and what models & methodologies work for which kinds of outcomes?
2. Where do certain theories of change work best,
3. When are we best placed to introduce interventions to see an impact,
4. How might we design new services with built in interventions that work,
5. Why do people do what they do?
6. 

In the core strategy, we set out the importance of ensuring that as we change the transport system to deliver our LTP aims, we must ensure that there is a “just transition”.

People all face different barriers and challenges for transport and have different needs. However, analysis consistently shows that there are a number of groups that face particular barriers that disadvantage them in a world where they often already face systemic disadvantages. Ensuring that we create an inclusive transport system that addresses these issues is crucial for a just transition and to achieve our aim of a fairer transport system.

Groups with particular needs that are often not well catered for include:

• People with physical and/or mental impairments or poor health
• Children and young people
• Women
• People with family or other caring responsibilities
• People with more limited disposable income
• People from particular ethnic minority backgrounds
• Older people
• People targeted by hate crime

There are a number of key issues to consider that affect groups differently. For example:

• Ability to drive
• Reduced unaided mobility
• Difficulties understanding travel information and navigating transport services
• Vulnerability to crime
• Vulnerability to road safety
• The need to travel with dependents
• More complex travel patterns (e.g. the need to make linked trips/change travel plans)
• Affordability of travel
• Ability to use cashless payments and smart devices

The extent to which different people bear these issues depends on where they are and how well the available provision helps them overcome barriers. For example, in rural areas the reduced availability of public transport exacerbates problems, as does limited pavement space and pavement parking in parts of our urban areas.

Our transport system and our policies to shape it don’t just need to cater for the majority; they must ensure that everyone is equitably supported to meet their transport needs.

The core strategy set out how important managing demand is for achieving our aims.

Through its powers relating to land use and transport policy, Local Government  has powerful levers that it can use to manage demand to deliver behaviour change.

These levers can substantially change the choice environment for transport in the area. Using these levers is critical to delivering the LTP’s aims but their use through implementation proposals will require careful planning and consent from the public, to ensure their use is sustainable, maximises benefit, and avoids unintentional harm to the LTP aims.

Public engagement is critical for successful development and delivery of the implementation proposals that will cause the behaviour change needed to deliver the LTP aims.

There are a number of aims for public engagement in policy development and delivery.

Our approach to public engagement to deliver the LTP will need to include activity across all of these aims.

How we approach each aim, what we communicate and why, needs to be based on a common and consistent narrative.  We will ground this in our common aims, our understanding of the problems and the nature of solutions that can work, and our understanding of citizens needs and capabilities.

Communications can be an effective tool in encouraging those who may already have good alternatives to change their behaviour.

We already do this in the lead up to major events or planned disruptions, when there are unexpected disruptions on our network, and where we have recently delivered a scheme that improves the provision of alternatives in an area.

Encouraging people to change their behaviour in this way has its limits. Highlighting the options available to people won’t change how well options meet citizens’ needs. Public engagement to encourage behaviour change must go hand in hand with actions we take to materially change citizens’ choice environment.

Where collaborative engagement is done well it involves planners and policy makers engaging with citizens, enabling them to participate in discussion about local issues and options, and helping them make decisions on the right course of action. This is in contrast to a model where planners and policy makers decide on plans, announce them and then defend those decisions through consultation.

This engagement provides input into policy and proposal development that is as critical as technical studies and modelling, and also needs to be adequately resourced.

Digital technologies have significantly enhanced our ability to communicate more complex information with a wider audience and presents many opportunities for improving how we engage.

However, we also need to ensure that we don’t create a situation where poorly planned out engagement results in too much information being communicated and citizens becoming fatigued and disillusioned.

Engagement with local citizens and businesses can work better where they can see the bigger picture of what changes are being proposed in their area that affect them rather than engaging on many different proposals separately. An approach where planners come together around holistic place-based plans rather than siloed working on individual projects, supports better collaborative public engagement and planning.

1. proposals are still at a formative stage
   A final decision has not yet been made, or predetermined, by the decision makers
2. there is sufficient information to give 'intelligent consideration'
   The information provided must relate to the consultation and must be available, accessible, and easily interpretable for consultees to provide an informed response
3. there is adequate time for consideration and response
   There must be sufficient opportunity for consultees to participate in the consultation. There is no set timeframe for consultation,' despite the widely accepted twelve-week consultation period, as the length of time given for consultee to respond can vary depending on the subject and extent of impact of the consultation
4. 'conscientious consideration' must be given to the consultation responses before a decision is made
   Decision-makers should be able to provide evidence that they took consultation responses into account