february’s multimodal monday webinar:

What incentives work within the community?

DDOT in collaboration with local bike share company MoGo, recently introduced an incentive whereby if you bought a monthly transit pass, you would receive free bike share for a month. However it did not perform well, even though 2000 passes were purchased. Why was the bike share service activated so few times? It’s hard to change learned human behaviour. Trying to break a commuter’s routine for example is very different, especially when they have a set schedule and are worried about being late to work. They are now looking into how it was introduced, were the communities questions answered and if it was user-friendly enough.

How can technology influence human behaviour?

If you want to break a habit, usually the product/service has to be at least three times better for someone to want to even try it. With transportation, that number is closer to nine. Commutifi has built a score index around each type and mode of transport. It’s basically a baseline of where you are and lists reference points for where you could be. Being able to score transportation options objectively, gives the user a visual aid (removing the need for extra brain power). This is one way to induce them into changing their behaviour.

How has policy changed to inform human behaviour?

In contrast to European cities, the main driver for transportation in the US are economic drivers, not sustainability. For this reason, in order to shift behaviour and change policy, it has to be economically driven as well. The cost of changing, innovating and building isn’t attractive to many companies. However, if you convince private companies and public agencies to invest money in a strong transit system, bike network and a great tech provider, for example, you can create widespread change across all systems and focus on what’s really important – sustainability. Getting cities to look at minimum parking requirements and level of service analysis for car traffic are two things that have been the hardest shifts to make. Now we are at a point where cities are ready to dive into making changes in these areas.

Policy-wise they are ready, but implementation-wise, they are not. What is helping to break this cycle are pilot programs and positive data points. What we need to see for future sustainable transport systems are:

• Regulations and ordinances changing.
• An increase in infrastructure that support walking, biking, micromobility, and transit.
• Public and private organizations working together to develop and implement equity packages.

How can we nudge people behaviour towards multimodal? Is it a good idea if it’s politically motivated?

If you just throw together a program due to political will, it might work in the short term, but not in the long term. It doesn’t have to be politically pushed forward with a “holistic” or “great” purpose, it could just be that we need to save money as a city/state. ‘It’s expensive to maintain car infrastructure’, ‘It’s expensive to not have your workers live in the city where they work’ etc. There are ways to incentivize shared programs with an economical driven belief that we can help the community.

Political forces are usually involved, especially with funding from a federal level. Even though the Biden administration is ‘transit friendly,’ there is still a limit on what solutions you can research and explore when you have boxes to tick. Funding stipulations and local/regional political directives can really inhibit successful innovation.

From a behaviour change perspective, commutes are the hardest to break. One way to do it, is to change habit reinforcing things like monthly parking and quarterly parking and instead offering daily and hourly choices. This way you can make a different choice each day, based on your needs, the weather etc. As people start to realize there are better options to driving, overtime that daily choice will change from once a week, to twice and then you can pull back on incentive programs. We also need sticks as well as carrots, like congestion and parking fees to help fund better, more equitable and sustainable transportation.

We need to think about the pandemic as a life changing event and a great time to encourage people to make new habits. Historically, successful transit was a system that had an increase in ridership. Now, with the pandemic, that is completely different. What we need to focus on is how to make public transit more attractive to those who use it every day and throughout the day, then choice riders will follow. Essentially, the focus should be on improving the quality of the experience as opposed to trying to get more people on board. One way to do this is to increase transit options/times throughout the entire day as opposed to just focusing on commuting periods.

How do we get past these stipulations that impede progress?

Demonstration programs and pilots allows us the opportunity to try a service or project and to measure results. Even just starting with one company or employer before rolling it out into a town/city. However, pilots have the tendency to get people really excited for something that initially may not be financially sustainable. Transparency with the user is key to managing expectations. There is more freedom for innovation exploration when you are not tied to federal funding program and expensive programs just aren’t always viable for public organizations. Therefore public and private partners need to work together more, to ‘spread the wealth.’ By investing in each other, they are investing in themselves.

Last thoughts?

“The opportunity a Transportation Management Agency (TMA or a TMO) can add to a region or a district that encompasses many organizations and partnerships. It could be both residential or employer or it could be many employers working together to bulk purchase transit passes, or offer a really strong communication program or launch something. These are really popular across the United States. I’m hoping more districts and regions consider them as a model for more coordination…” – Jessica Alba

“We are already incentivising driving and parking. So if you are talking to an employer or property developer who is asking ‘what can I do to incentivize transportation but I don’t have that much money?’ Realize you are already spending a tonne of money on parking so if you can remove just one more parking spot that costs you $150-$200 per month, that’s a lot of money you can put into some other program. You can save money by shifting people into multimodal use.” – Andy Keeton

“Accountability is a big factor. We need to make sure these employers are actually participating in the communities they exist in. Also transparency. Keeping in mind the goals for who your product is for. Making sure the user is part of the overall development and making sure they are engaged throughout the entire process.” – Mikki Taylor-Hendrix