Woodmere Art Museum- This Philadelphia museum showcases the city’s art and artists. In addition to exhibiting the permanent collection of founder Charles Knox Smith, the museum includes The Helen Millard Children’s Gallery that features art by area school children.
Independence Hall- This Philadelphia landmark bore witness to some of the greatest moments in US history. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written at this site. Free ticketed admission allows visitors to tour the Georgian building.
Information dissemination and persuasion tactics have been used to alter individuals’ travel behavior. The former includes marketing public transport, travel awareness campaigns, and destination travel plans (Bamberg et al., 2012).
The Personalised Travel Planning (PTP) Program was adopted in the UK as a small-scale trial. Here, a helper presented a menu of options for participants, a personal advisor informed participants of the best travel alternative, or a pamphlet detailed the best options (Chatterjee, 2009). Careful media planning was required to prevent potential participants gaining a negative perception of the program (Chatterjee, 2009). To achieve higher participation rates, potential participants were contacted throughout the day and the week. Written invitations were left where direct contact could not be made. The review finding from the trial was that there was a reduction in car-driven trips of 7-15 percent for the targeted population in urban areas, with better impact in residential-based projects compared to those in schools and workplaces (Department for Transport, 2005). To achieve more reliable evaluation, data from larger programs in PTP in the UK were analyzed and the results were found to be consistent with the trial, with an average reduction in car-driven trips of 11 percent (Chatterjee, 2009).
Pennsylvania Map Photo Gallery
Based on the broader concept of personalized travel planning, in Germany an initiative called IndiMark (short for Individualized Marketing) was used to encourage alternative travel behavior (Brog et al., 2009). Travel plans in IndiMark include one-on-one buddy systems, mentors, and self-help groups to encourage and maintain change. The program was introduced to Perth, Western Australia, in 1997, with modifications to align with hard policy system improvements. In a sample of 400 individuals, the combination of hard policy infrastructure with soft policy initiatives saw a reduction in ‘car trips by 10% and increased use of other modes (walking, cycling and public transport) without constraining mobility’ (Brog et al., 2009, p. 284). Following the success of the initial IndiMark Program, this combination of soft policy with hard policy infrastructure was extended to over 400,000 residents in Perth under the TravelSmart Program. The destination travel plans, using mass social marketing of alternative transport options, encourage individuals to be responsible for the externalities of their travel. By demonizing the use of automobiles and promoting alternative transport options through guilt and social pressure, citizens are persuaded to change their travel behavior. TravelSmart has now been used across Australia, Europe, and North America, with over a million participants. Besides reducing car use, it has encouraged organizations to set challenging but feasible, rather than easy, targets to effect greater modifications in travel behavior (Brog et al., 2009).
PTP, TravelSmart, and other information dissemination programs are found to be more effective when used in conjunction with persuasion tactics. The latter could include ‘sticks’, like congestion charging and road tolls, or ‘carrots’, like pool loan bikes and employers paying public transport costs, to name a few (Bamberg et al., 2011). One study compared workplace travel plans for two areas with common denominators (Petrunoff et al., 2015). The first PTP included strategies of encouraging transit and active modes of travel. This was complemented with a parking management plan that reduced parking by 50 percent over three years and introduced parking prioritization and a permit system. TravelSmart induction was conducted for new staff, and employees were provided with e-bikes to be used within the campus and discounted parking for those who pooled their cars. The second PTP did not do any of the above; it relied solely on information dissemination. A difference of 37 percent in driving reduction was found between the two areas: while the first plan was able to achieve a 42 percent reduction in car use, the second plan achieved only a 5 percent reduction (Petrunoff et al., 2015).
Some research suggests that incentives and deterrents are effective in changing travel behavior. Policies to alter the travel behavior of individuals and reduce their use of automobiles could be an effective government initiative, emphasizing the need to reduce automobile dependence as a response to the resultant state of car-disconnect and the environmental impact of automobiles.
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