Sustainable transport access in town centres: A goal-orientated decision-making perspective on the adaptive power of small business

Town centres are connected places. Business owners in town centres value the transport accessibility and tap into it as a resource of their business. When policymakers want to change the conditions in which people access a town centre, this represents a disruption to how businesses capture value from access. There is value in understanding the (relatively under-researched) question of how small business owners react when sustainable transport policies are implemented in an urban town centre environment – especially if it involves the removal of car parking. Similar to how changes to town centre parking are intended to disrupt the goal needs of the travelling public, changes to town centre parking are a disruption to the goal needs of businesses to protect or advance their business viability. This research contributes to knowledge by investigating how changes to transport access are incorporated into the business strategies of business owners; the willing ness of business owners to adopt strategies that utilise new modes of transport access; and the potential power of town centre business actors to impact sustainable transport policy goals. A goal-orientated model of decision-making is used as a framework to examine if/how psychological theory about individual goal motivations and strategies links with sociological thinking about the capture of value from accessibility features in the environment. Historical research, focus groups and an innovative mobile web-assisted personal interviewing (WAPI) survey of 156 business owners are used to investigate how shop-based businesses in a selection of inner city town centres of Sydney, Australia respond to hypothetical changes in accessibility. This study found local government’s role as instigator of disruptions, was a barrier for them understanding the underlying business concerns and appreciating small businesses’ willingness to adapt. Businesses surveye d were optimistic about the customer and competitive benefit! s of imp roved sustainable transport options and indicated willingness to incorporate the new resource into their strategies. The prospect of losing car parking spaces tempered this enthusiasm, shifting businesses to be more cautious and reducing the number of strategies they took. The Regulatory Focus model of goal motivations although helpful in categorizing business goal motivations and goal strategies had reduced predictive power as businesses exhibited a reluctance to restrict their strategic behaviour around one goal. Outcomes of the research are anticipated to help policymakers improve their sensitivity to the ways businesses develop competencies in using the value of new transport access and stimulate more interest in how small businesses matter to policy goal success