Following her BSC (Hons) in Psychology from the University of Bath, Tara graduated from the University of Groningen in 2021 with an MSc in Environmental Psychology. During this time, she worked on a project advising the Dutch Ministry of Finance on how behavioural insights could be used to promote the adoption of second-hand electric vehicles in the Netherlands, and she became passionate about designing and evaluating interventions promoting low-carbon behaviours. Tara was attracted to AAPS CDT because she wanted to gain a deeper understanding of current and future mobility challenges to better recognise how to address them.
Reducing car use is one of the most impactful decisions a person can make to reduce their carbon footprint. Yet, even with efforts to promote the uptake of walking, cycling, and public transport, the private car remains the most common way of travelling in the UK. This is partly because for many drivers, car use has become something that is habitual and automatic. However, since habits rely on stable contexts (e.g., time, place, social groups) for the same behaviour to be repeated, a change in context may lead to a person’s existing car driving habits to be broken, and for new ones (e.g., walking or cycling) to be formed.
This PhD will explore how changes in the road environment (e.g., road closures, liveable neighbourhoods) impact people’s car driving habits. Through evaluating real-world case studies, it will explore how car drivers respond to different types of road changes and why, in order to develop practical guidance for transport planners to support people towards positive, sustainable behaviour change.
© Copyright 2024 AAPS CDT, Centre for Doctoral Training in Advanced Automotive Propulsion Systems at the University of Bath
