TRANSPORT EMISSIONS INFORMATION: LESSONS FROM THE PEACOX PROJECT

The transport sector contributes roughly one fifth of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, however, such emissions are often overlooked by individuals when making their route and mode choices. This is due to these emissions being very hard to detect, and individuals often being occupied with more immediate concerns such as cost and time. Smartphone applications offer a new means of highlighting this issue and making users more aware of the environmental consequences associated with their transport behaviour. As part of the European Commission’s FP7 PEACOX project, a smartphone application was designed for the Android mobile platform to make help users better understand their transport related emissions. Combining trip specific emissions information with a journey planning functionality the application was designed to both highlight emissions arising from users’ existing behaviour and to suggest more sustainable alternatives. The application was tested by a group of twenty one smartphone users in the Greater Dublin Area for an eight week period in late summer and autumn 2014. Users were asked to access the application to plan their day-to-day trips and to log which routes they selected. This enabled the recording of mode choices and total emissions produced to for the examination the role of the supplied emissions information on their behaviour. Utilising a number of additional qualitative data collection methods such as pre-trial and post-trial workshops, as well as information assessment experiments and three rounds of surveys, it was possible to gather detailed information on the users’ experiences with the application. Based upon the combined results of the various methods of investigation it became clear that while carbon dioxide emissions information was found by users to be both interesting and novel, and may have a role to play in terms of increasing understanding and awareness of this issue, it cannot be considered to be a major driver of individuals’ transport behaviour. This paper outlines the goals of the project and the problems it sought to overcome, the stages involved in designing and developing the PEACOX application, and the results of the field trials. This paper also provides a number of insights on lessons learned as part of the project, from both a technical and behavioural standpoint, and provides recommendations for the design of similar applications, or the integration of emissions information into digital journey planners.