Motivations and Barriers to Adopting Sustainable Travel Behaviour

This paper investigates different travel behaviour related projects and identifies barriers and motivations for behavioural change towards more sustainable mobility. Since methodologies from other disciplines such as sociology and psychology are becoming more important for travel behaviour research, a main focus is on inter-disciplinary approaches. These concepts seem to constitute fruitful attempts to enrich a useful knowledge base for policy and planning measures. Additionally, results from the authors’ previous research are used to compare drivers and constraints for environmentally friendly behaviour. In general, determinants for behavioural decisions differ between types of travel – in terms of daily and tourist travel – and between transport user groups. Socio-psychological factors like attitudes towards the environment and towards certain modes of transport or the importance of moral obligation and environmental beliefs are main influencing variables for daily travel. Tourist travel decisions are more dependent on individual socioeconomic situations. The resulting conflict between individual knowledge about negative sustainability related effects from air travel and conflicting individual unsustainable actions leads to a strategy of collective denial and a psychological gap, where people wait for others to act without changing their own behaviour.Economic and Social Research Counci

Роль цветовой символики в русской, французской и английской фразеологии (на примере устойчивых сочетаний с компонентами черный (noir, black) и белый (blanc, white))

Статья посвящена изучению роли цветовой символики в семантике устойчивых сочетаний с компонентами черный (noir, black) и белый (blanc, white). Анализируются специфические и универсальные признаки фразеологического материала, наполняющего фрагменты языковых картин мира трех лингвосоциумов: русского, французского и английского. Ключевые слова: firm unit, color component, черный, белый, noir, blanc, black, white.Статья присвячена вивченню ролі колірної символіки в семантиці стійких сполучень із компонентами чорний (noіr, black) і білий (blanc, whіte). Аналізуються специфічні та універсальні ознаки фразеологічного матеріалу, що наповнює фрагменти мовних картин світу трьох лінгвосоціумів: російського, французького та англійського. Ключові слова: стійка одиниця, компонент цветообозначения, черный, белый, noir, blanc, black, white.The article is dedicated to the study of the color symbolism role in the semantics of the firm combinations with the components черный (noir, black) and белый (blanc, white). The specific and universal signs of the phraseological material, filling the fragments of the language pictures of the world of the three nations: Russian, French and English, have been analyzed. Keywords: черный, белый, noir, blanc, black, white

'A holiday is a holiday’: practicing sustainability, home and away

‘Behaviour change’ is one of the major concerns for academics and practitioners concerned with tackling climate change. Research amongst tourism geographers has conventionally focussed on the various choices that individuals can make, both before and during their holidays, to reduce environmental footprints, specifically through the use of sustainability criteria. However, whilst there is a developing understanding of the motivations for sustainable tourism practices, there is less appreciation of the relationship tourist practices have to everyday environmental activities in and around the home. This latter issue has been researched extensively by social psychologists and environmental sociologists. Accordingly, the paper will draw upon these two existing bodies of research to argue that a holistic understanding of ‘sustainable lifestyles’ is needed if effective behavioural change strategies for climate change are to be developed, revealing the complexities of contemporary environmental practices. Using data from a recent British Academy research project, the paper will explore the changing nature of sustainable lifestyles and will demonstrate the relationships between home- and tourism-based environmental practices. The paper will argue that whilst individuals are relatively comfortable with participating in a range of environmental behaviours in and around the home, the transference of these practices to tourism contexts can be problematic. This is particularly the case for high-consumption activities such as low-cost air travel. The paper concludes by arguing that both academics and policy makers need to re-frame their notions of ‘sustainable lifestyles’, transcending a series of practices and contexts.Economic and Social Research Counci

Interactions Between Residential Relocations, Life Course Events, and Daily Commuting Distances

This paper presents results from a project investigating interdependencies among residential changes, other life course events, and transport. The main goal is to identify specific relocations and other key events during a person’s life with a significant impact on changes in travel behavior. With the theoretical background of the mobility biographies approach—assuming that travel behavior is mainly habitual—the paper attempts to deliver a basis for potential soft policy intervention measures to change daily travel behavior toward a more sustainable mobility. The empirical basis is the German Socio-Economic Panel. By analyzing longitudinal data, it is possible to allocate different key events during the life course to change a person’s mobility behavior. Because total distances traveled are partly based on daily commute distances, changes in the journey-to-work distance were used to indicate changes in travel behavior. Results of a linear regression model for change in commute distance show a significant influence from the previous home-to-work distance or other travel patterns such as mode choice and accessibility of public transport. Besides sociodemographic factors like income, the importance of life course events such as specific relocations and professional changes can also be documented. Spatial structure of the destination (regional core versus noncore, specific type of neighborhood or house) also has a significant impact on commute distances

Elderly co-residence and the household responsibilities hypothesis : Evidence from Nanjing, China

In this paper, we analyze the effects of co-residence with elderly parents on gender differences in travel. The Household Responsibility Hypothesis (HRH) explains differences in the role of women regarding household responsibilities. However, research so far has studied "Western" household types while excluding households with co-residing elderly parents. Furthermore, research has paid exclusive attention to gender differences in commuting trips, and has neglected the effects of built environment characteristics. In view of these shortcomings, we pose the following research questions: what are the determinants of gendered differences in travel behavior, and specifically, what are the effects of elderly co-residence in households and land use on gender differences in trip frequency and travel distance? In addition to the HRH, we introduce the Elderly Co-residence Hypothesis, which suggests that co-residing elderly parents take over household responsibilities from adult women, resulting in diminishing gender differences in working-age travel patterns. We present the results of empirical research in Nanjing, China, that support this hypothesis