Public awareness is a fundamental for any successful sustainable transport initiative. People have thoughts, feelings and habits that are sometimes contrary to the prerequisites of a sustainable transport system, however this is somewhat easy to solve if proper steps are taken. Some of them are briefly outlined in this article, and further explained in the Public Awareness Module from the SUTP sourcebook.
An initial question regarding public awareness is who should be the target group of a public awareness campaign. At first, everyone would think that the first actors involved are car users. Even though these are primary people who have to change attitudes towards transportation issues, every other citizen should become part of a public awareness campaign, since sometimes they are only using bicycles or buses because they don't have enough money to buy a car. If they are not properly informed, once they arrive at a higher income level, they would immediately buy a car and deny all sustainability efforts made in the past. In this sense, every citizen is a potential participant of a public awareness campaign on sustainable transport.
However, as social marketing experts agree, the target groups should be well defined and key messages should be defined for each of these groups separately but with a main objective: in our case, to promote sustainable urban transport in a city. For this purpose, there are three “channels” which have to be used for an effective campaign: thinking, feeling and acting towards sustainable transport. The first (and the most common) approach towards changing someone's view of a transportation mode's effectiveness and sustainability is to explain the situation and arguments of transportation and its sustainability with logical statements.
Other than rational and logical arguments, emotional responses are also part of a human being's attitude towards the place they live in. In this case, people feel good or bad in a certain place or with a certain mode of transport, and in most cases people feel better when riding a car, since it is more comfortable and they think it is the best option for all. But if people are persuaded into using non-motorized or public transport because they would feel healthier and they would have a better physical condition (also, they would be contributing to a more beautiful city), they could start feeling a lot better when using these modes instead of a car.
Finally, the third channel to change people's behavior and attitude toward transportation is the development of practices that promote sustainable transport. Bicycle rides to work and on weekends, car-free activities (car-free Sundays or annual events) and other specific actions in which citizens are invited to participate in activities that imply the use of sustainable transport are very effective when people already understand the relevance of their use and are ready to practice them.
Text and photograph for this articles courtesy the Sustainable Urban Transport Project. Resource Contributions – dgCommunity Urban Development Guide and Advisor, Professor Patrizia Mazzoni; dgCommunity Glocalization and Youth for Development Advisor Giulia D’Amico.
March 17, 2008
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