TRENDY TRAVEL - Emotions for sustainable transport
Overview
Background & policy context:
Information about the positive consequences of sustainable modes can help foster modal shifts, but is not sufficient to achieve a change of perception and attitude. Public transport, cycling and walking need to be associated with positive emotions like excitement, fun, being moved, a lust for life, pride and so on.
Objectives:
The main object of Trendy Travel is to show how sustainable travel can be made more attractive by appealing to people's emotional needs, so as to effect a modal shift from the car to more sustainable transport modes.
It is effectively a dissemination project, which disseminates the idea of sustainable, environmentally friendly and sound modes of transportation to the broader public with the support of emotional promotion tools like storytelling,rituals, raising the image of cycling with highly emotional advertising,"pleasing the eye" (introducing the power of art) and finally,exploitation of children's "pester power".
Methodology:
The dissemination approach of TRENDY TRAVEL includes non traditional ways of dissemination, designed to encourage storytelling. Five different emotional approaches are used within the project:
- The first uses storytelling to engage interest, make public transport more pleasurable, reward good travel habits, entice positive mode shifts, etc.
- The second is based on the idea that rituals structure our lives, form habits, and encourage commitment to participation. This is exploited to encourage the use of the bicycle as a daily mode of transport by developing annually cycling event calendars.
- The third strategy is to raise the image of cycling (particularly in the New Member States) using the same high quality marketing approach employed by the car industry. It includes market research using the cycling climate test to ascertain how people feel about cycling before and after the Trendy Travel actions. Other image raising techniques include: celebrity endorsement, quirky competitions for cyclist group tours and the 20 good reasons to cycle brochure.
- The fourth strategy aims to make sustainable travel more sensually appealing particularly by pleasing the eye. It involves the production of guidelines and resource packs on how to make cycling routes more attractive e.g. by providing drinking fountains, architectural landscaping, signage etc. It will also use eye-catching pictures, paintings and cartoon graphics free-to-download from the TRENDY TRAVEL Website.
- The fifth and final strategy exploits children's Pester Power to persuade parents to let them walk, cycle or take the bus to school. Safe cycle training travel workshops for parents and kids, games, lotteries and contests to encourage good travel habits were carried out.
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