Acceptability and impacts of positive incentives for sustainable mobility behaviour: a segmentation approach in Curitiba, Brazil.

The development and delivery of positive incentives for the adoption of more environmentally friendly modes of transport is an emerging strategy to help tackle the problems associated with cars and other private conventionally-fuelled vehicles (CFVs) such as motorbikes. Policy-makers developing sustainable transport interventions that use positive incentives can benefit from the knowledge generated from research. Which groups respond best? And what environmental impacts can positive incentives have? Answers to these questions can support more effective transport policies and targeted interventions. The aim of this thesis is to examine the level of acceptability and the potential environmental impact of positive incentive schemes delivered using smartphone applications. A cross-sectional survey was completed by 920 university students in Curitiba, a Brazilian city with a population of 2 million people. The questionnaire was developed considering two groups of indicators: individual determinants of travel behaviour, which were extracted from theories of social psychology, and stated intentions and attitudes towards a range of eleven incentive strategies. Strategies included money, vouchers, points, rankings, and social media. Comparison across different behavioural profiles was performed using clustering and discriminant analyses. Stated intentions and mobility-related data were used to estimate environmental scenarios of incentives implementation. Results showed a higher individual preference for financial rewards and a relatively lower acceptability of social media tools. The acceptance level among groups with greater control over the use of non-motorised forms of transport was found to be higher than that among groups that are psychologically predisposed to private CFVs. The most conservative scenarios of modal shift in response to incentives indicate a potential reduction of 3.6-3.8% in carbon dioxide emissions, suggesting that positive incentives can play a small but important role in the global decarbonisation of the transport system demanded by the climate crisis.