Imagined Practices and the Future of
Personal Mobility: Insights from the UK
Dr Noam Bergman1 & Dr Tim Schwanen2
(1) Centre on Innovation and Energy Demand (CIED)
Science Policy Research Unit,
University of Sussex
(2) Transport Studies Unit,
School of Geography and the Environment,
University of Oxford
Context: personal mobility,
sustainability and behaviour
• Current car-based personal mobility is unsustainable
from a climate change and emissions perspective.
• Other issues include congestion, air quality, accessibility.
• Changing the (personal) transport system is notoriously
difficult: system is locked-in to automobility.
• car owning norms & practices, cultural representations,
institutions, expertise & knowledge, infrastructure…
• We consider how visions of the future see personal
mobility, and how people and behaviour are portrayed.
Two relevant innovations in
personal mobility
• Electric vehicles (EVs) offer technical emissions reduction
if electricity is low-carbon. But still challenging: usage
(range, recharging), infrastructure, supply chains
• Car clubs (car sharing) offer systemic change to travel;
product-to-service shift with access to mobility over
ownership, integrated transport.
Visions of future transport
• We looked at imagined futures in documents
including visions, forecasts, pathways etc.
All address road transport in the UK.
• They come from a variety of actors/stakeholders –
government, industry, consultancies, lobby groups.
• Written 2002-2015; projections to 2020s – 2050s.
• A few focus only on car clubs or EVs.
• Most have broader focus: low carbon cars, UK road
transport, UK economy. All of these address EVs, only a
few mention car clubs
Visions as tools & strategies
• Visions are powerful political tools that can:
•
•
•
•
generate support from a wide array of stakeholders;
create expectations that help develop technologies;
allow action in the present based on the past;
‘crafting’ development trajectories suiting authors’
interests.
• Most of the vision documents we analysed represent
incumbent actors; they have resources to produce broad
systemic visions. We focus on their vision(s).
Imagining people
• Strong similarities across studies in how people are
imagined: independent individuals (or households)
making choices.
• People are portrayed as consumers or users.
• narratives of increased innovation uptake in the future
• little consideration of public as stakeholders or partners.
• Roughly identical, interchangeable consumers.
• heterogeneity - population segments adopting vehicles; or
• range of models & brands to serve needs, preferences.
Imagining behaviour
• People are portrayed largely as economic rational actors:
consumers whose travel behaviour is a set of choices
that maximise their utility.
• It is acknowledged that other factors affect vehicle
choice - habits, brands loyalty, familiarity, image…
• Consumers portrayed as having a passive role in any
shift, their main ‘job’ is buying (green) cars.
• Behaviour sometimes reduced to choice of car purchased.
• Focus is often on how to increase demand and uptake:
• financial incentives, awareness and overcoming barriers.
Explaining low uptake
If we had perfect knowledge of each consumer, we
could obtain an accurate model for each consumer’s
utility score for each vehicle and so be certain of
their vehicle choice. – EST 2007
While there is no doubt that
consumers do care about fuel
costs… evidence suggests that
consumer behaviour does not
‘people tend to discount heavily...
follow a rational economic
future cost savings from fuel economy
model. – AEA 2013
at the time of purchasing a car, even
though it would seem to be in their
own interests...’ – King, 2007
‘there is a list as long as your arm of reasons why people might
not be rushing out to buy green. Those reasons include
concerns about: price, reliability, resale value, range and
practicality, desirability, fuel efficiency. – Ecolane 2011
Imagining mobility
• Technological progress seen as solution to emissions:
• cars linked to technological progress, economic growth;
• ULEVs (probably EVs) have a role to play over time.
• Most aspects of automobility remaining unchanged:
• high demand travel in car-owning, car-driving society;
• travel as a right and a necessity
• Full potential of EVs is hardly explored – they must copy
ICEVs in order to succeed: expectations of range, speed,
safety, comfort – and a variety of models and brands.
Incumbent strategies
• Future similar to present and past, smooth(ish) shift
• Significant reduction in demand & modal shift are
portrayed as unrealistic.
• Low carbon travel is portrayed as a local, complementary
measure for reducing emissions (no effect on car sales).
• Over time we see a shift to focusing on the demand side,
removing responsibility from the automotive industry.
For example: in recent documents we find battery range
recast to problematise behaviour as ‘range anxiety’.
Alternative visions
• Car club based visions assume:
• society benefits from moving away from car ownership;
• greater behaviour change is possible (e.g., modal shift).
resulting in an integrated, service-oriented system:
• imagining changes to norms and behaviour;
• focusing on access to mobility over car ownership;
• reduced mileage per driver; reduced number of cars.
• Radical change – Foresight visions: what if people reject
intelligent infrastructure? Stronger agency for users.
Conclusions (1)
• People portrayed as individual consumers, often as
rational actors despite evidence this is inaccurate.
This dissonance leads to other noted behaviours (e.g.,
habits) defined as ‘non-financial barriers’.
• Behaviour seen mostly as consumer choice (of vehicle)
to avoid difficulty of changing car-based behaviour?
or because change is undesirable?
• Other roles, e.g. citizen, knowledge producer – might
complicate or undermine ‘business as usual’ future.
Conclusions (2)
• Aspects which don’t align with incumbent agendas are
ignored (peak car), marginalised (car clubs) or
problematised (complex behaviour).
• Imagining EVs as a simple substitute for ICEVs might
actually perpetuate ICEVs as they are the norm against
which alternative mobility forms compete.
• Imagining people and behaviour as more than
consumers making rational choices is not only possible,
but highly desirable in our search for sustainable
personal mobility in the future.