The effect of personal cap-and-trade mileage policies on individual activity-travel patterns: the Activity Locator project

摘要

The objective of this work is to contribute to the debate on sustainable policies aimed at reducing personal car- bon emissions from the transport sector. The proposed research describes an experiment extending the cap-and-trade system, employed in manufacturing-based emission curb programs, to Voluntary Travel Behavioral Change (VTBC) program. In particular, a VTBC program is proposed that relies on opportune changes in individual activity-travel patterns after observing actual behavior recorded using an innovative device.\udIn this regard, the methodology developed includes: (1) the design of a new behavioral strategy called “Cap and Save” and (2) the implementation of a new device for daily individual activity travel patterns collection called “Activity Locator”. The two aspects are closely interrelated, since behavioral strategies are usually difficult to evaluate; indeed, data regarding individual behavior before and after policy intervention are rarely collected.\udFrom July to October 2009, both the Activity Locator and the Cap and save were implemented during a two-week survey involving a group of students of the University of Cagliari (Italy). The students’ activity-travel behavior over two survey weeks and their feedback on both the Activity Locator device and Cap and save strategy were then analyzed.