Travel blending: an Australian travel awareness initiative

This paper outlines a new approach to reducing car use in order to address environmental concerns. The individual action program, known as Travel Blen ding((R)), involves participating households being sent a series of four ki ts, containing information booklets and travel diaries, over a nine-week pe riod. The travel diaries are analysed and a summary of the household's trav el patterns, and the emissions produced by their vehicles, is sent back in a subsequent kit along with suggestions explaining how they could reduce ve hicle use. Households complete another set of travel diaries after four wee ks and these are analysed so that a comparative summary can be returned to the household with the final kit. The paper describes results from two Aust ralian studies. The first, a pilot study, involving about 50 individuals, w as undertaken in Sydney, Australia. The second study involved about 100 hou seholds from Adelaide, Australia. Quantitative results from the Adelaide st udy indicate about a 10% reduction in car driver kilometres with a slightly higher percentage reductions in car driver trips and total hours spent in the car. These results, while very encouraging, must be interpreted cautiou sly. Further research will be required to explore the generalisability and magnitude of the effect of the Travel Blending((R)) Program on travel behav iour. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.