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Travel Blending®

An Evidence-Based Practice

Description

The Travel Blending® program tracks household travel behavior and encourages individuals to reduce the use of their car by mixing their travel choices over time. The Travel Blending® Program was developed as a part of the public initiative Clean Air 2000, aimed at reducing pollution caused by car travel prior to the year 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Participating households receive a series of kits, containing information booklets and travel diaries, over a nine-week period. The first kit includes information introducing the Travel Blending® concept, and a travel diary. Completed travel diaries are analyzed and a summary of the household's travel and emissions patterns are sent back to the participant in the second kit, along with personalized suggestions to reduce vehicle use. The third kit includes a second set of travel diaries, which are analyzed to create a comparative summary that is returned to the user in the final kit, along with a log book to allow continued weekly car travel monitoring. Suggestions for reducing the use of the car include planning activities and travel in advance, blending modes of transportation, combining activities into single trips, and making small sustainable changes over time. One example of blending would be to use public transport to commute to work one day per week, a manageable and sustainable way to potentially reduce weekday peak period vehicle use by 20%.

Goal / Mission

The goal of Travel Blending® Program is to reduce personal vehicle use.

Impact

The Travel Blending program reduced car trips, car kilometers, and hours spend in the car.

Results / Accomplishments

This program was evaluated using quantitative results from "before" and "after" travel journals from 100 households in the Adelaide, Australia implementation of Travel Blending®, called TravelSmart Adelaide. Participants in the program significantly reduced car trips per person (from 14 to 10.8 trips), car kilometers per person (from 146 to 114.8 km), and total hours spent in the car per person (from 7.2 to 5.3 hours). These reductions were significant at a 5% or lower significance level, measured using a Z test. Aggregate reductions in car use included 22.7% fewer car driver trips, 21.3% fewer car driver kilometers, and 26.2% fewer hours in the car.

About this Promising Practice

Organization(s)
TravelSmart Australia
Primary Contact
Geoffrey Rose
Department of Civil Engineering
Institute of Transport Studies
Monash University
Wellington Road
Clayton, Vic. 3168
Australia
+61-3-9905-4959
geoffrey.rose@eng.monash.edu.au
http://www.travelsmart.gov.au/training/packaging.h...
Topics
Community / Transportation
Environmental Health / Air
Organization(s)
TravelSmart Australia
Source
Science Direct
Date of publication
2001
Date of implementation
1996
Geographic Type
Urban
Location
Australia
For more details
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S...
Target Audience
Adults, Families

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An Evidence-Based Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures showing improvement in the outcome(s) of interest after the implementation of the program (i.e. increase in smoking cessation, not just the delivery of a smoking cessation program). The outcome measure(s) is/are compared at relevant time periods before and after the intervention or program implementation. Alternatively, the evaluation study compares the outcome(s) between an intervention group and an appropriate control group.
  3. The study is of peer-review quality and presents numbers in a scientific manner; measurements of precision and reliability are included (e.g. confidence intervals, standard errors), results from statistical tests show a significant difference or change in the outcome measure(s), and relevant point estimates and p-values are presented. Note: if the results from an evaluation of a program are presented in a scientific manner and the outcome measure is improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant, the practice is classified as effective and not evidence-based.
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