Travelling smarter down under: policies for voluntary travel behaviour change in Australia

This paper reviews the voluntary travel behaviour change programs adopted across Australia in recent times. These programs facilitate individuals and households in changing their travel behaviour through personal choice and individual action. The paper examines the issues relating to the various programs and discusses the techniques used and the results and evaluations. The behaviour change programs reported to date show consistent evidence that participating households make substantial reductions in their usage of private motor vehicles. Further, a range of non-transport benefits have been found, albeit at the local level. These benefits include changes in land use, social interaction, economic development, and health indicators. One consequence is that other government agencies, responsible for areas such as community development, health, environment, energy, public safety, planning and even education, have begun to form interests in the programs. Two key challenges have emerged: (1) the actual measurement tools are hard to implement or the changes are on a scale smaller than that at which measurement is usually made, and (2) the clients for travel behaviour change programs have to date been transport organisations for whom the only relevant outcome is travel change. Given that these projects may be of value to other interested organisations, it may be that ultimately travel behaviour change may be intimately linked with all aspects of community life, which could lead to greater change, and certainly to greater sustainability.