Transportation's Role in Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions ...

Transportation’s Role in Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Volume 2
Information on Travel Choices
Description
Two programs—It All Adds Up to Cleaner
Air and Best Workplaces for Commuters—
are directed at affecting travel choices to
reduce fuel consumption and emissions.
It All Adds Up to Cleaner Air emphasizes
simple and convenient actions that
consumers can take. The Best Workplaces
for Commuters program (discussed in
Section 5.5, Commute Travel Reduction)
provides public recognition for
employers that offer their employees
commuter-related benefits. Public
information has also been an important
component of local and regional
commuter TDM programs. Mass
marketing campaigns have been used to
inform commuters about the availability
of travel alternatives and incentives and
direct them to more specific information
on options for their commute.
Information on Travel Choices
Benefits: Low: 6 to 9 mmt CO 2e in 2030
Direct Costs: Moderate-High: $90 to $270 per
tonne
Net Included Costs: Not estimated
Confidence in Estimates: Low
• Benefits of mass marketing difficult to
quantify; individualized marketing still in
demonstration stages
Key Cobenefits and Impacts: Positive
• Improved awareness and understanding of
travel options
Feasibility: High
• Primary barrier to mass marketing is funding
• Broad-scale acceptance of individualized
marketing unproven
Key Policy Options:
• Larger-scale demonstration programs for
individualized marketing
A new form of public information campaign, known as individualized marketing, shows
promise for reducing GHG emissions through travel behavior changes. Individualized
marketing programs utilize survey tools to identify individuals who are open to
alternative modes of transportation, and provide individualized contact and customized
information on modes favored by targeted respondents. The concept of individualized
marketing was first developed and tested in Europe and Australia. U.S. pilot projects have
been undertaken in selected neighborhoods in a number of cities including Bellingham,
Washington; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Cleveland, Ohio; Durham, North Carolina;
Portland, Oregon; and Sacramento, California (FTA, 2006; ACT, 2008).
Magnitude and Timing of Greenhouse Gas Reductions
Public information campaigns directed at travel behavior have had mixed success, with
individualized marketing showing somewhat greater promise than mass marketing as a
travel and GHG reduction strategy. The benefits of mass marketing programs are difficult
to quantify, but appear to be modest. Two factors must be determined – how many people
recalled the message of the campaign; and of those, how many switched changed their
travel behavior as a result. Public information campaigns that have focused solely on
better informing the public of the environmental costs of their transportation choices (such
as driving alone) have not always produced noticeable behavioral changes (Tordella,
2007). Providing motorists in The Netherlands with information on the environmental and
5-93