Research Project Description

An Investigation into Constraints to Sustainable Vehicle Ownership and Use: A Focus Group Study

Project Number: 2903

Project Objective:

The proposed study will evaluate potential economic consequences, by simulating scenarios with the Sacramento land use and transportation models (PECAS and SACMET), of two important aspects of California´s Senate Bill 375: 1) the absence of a requirement that local land use plans conform to regional land use plans that demonstrate achievement of green house gas (GHG) targets required by Assembly Bill 32 and 2) the concentration of regional affordable housing in urban areas with high quality transit access.

Principal Investigators:

Bradley Flamm, Ph.D., M.R.P, Assistant Professor, Department of Community and Regional Planning, Temple University

Team Members:

Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Urban & Regional Planning, San Jose State University, Director, MTI National Transportation Finance Center

Project Abstract:

Studies have found that many Americans find it difficult to reconcile their desires to reduce their impacts on the natural environment with the transportation options that are available to them. Most pro-environment individuals face objective and perceived constraints that prevent them from aligning their attitudes with their actions. This study will explore this attitudes-behavior gap through a series of four focus groups held in the Sacramento, California, metropolitan region. Through the focus groups, we will address the following research questions:

•   To what extent do focus group participants perceive that their vehicle ownership and use reflects their environmental attitudes?

•  What barriers and constraints do focus group participants perceive to aligning their environmental attitudes with their vehicle ownership and use choices?

•  What changes in personal circumstances do focus group participants believe would permit them to bring their vehicle ownership and use more closely in line with their environmental attitudes?

•  What changes in the travel options available to them do focus group participants believe would permit them to bring their vehicle ownership and use more closely in line with their environmental attitudes?

In addition, the focus group discussions will explore the extent to which a sudden change in travel costs affected actual travel behavior, as well as the participants  perceptions about the travel options available to them:

•   Did the spike in U.S. gasoline prices in the Spring and Summer of 2008 lead focus group participants to change their travel behavior?

•  If so, what insights did this experience teach the focus groups participants about the ease or difficulty of changing their travel behavior? Did it change their perceptions of the constraints they face in adopting travel behaviors that reflect their environmental attitudes?

This set of focus group sessions is well timed to answer both sets of research questions, for two reasons. First, implementation of the research project will follow by about a year the summer 2008 spike in gasoline and diesel prices. Participants will still have relatively fresh memories of any major changes in travel behavior that household members made in response to the price spike. Second, environmental issues are being addressed more energetically by the new Obama administration, particularly climate change, and the link between vehicle ownership and use decisions to environmental impacts is currently being widely discussed in the popular media, as well as within policymaking circles.

Task Description:

Task 1: Literature review

Conduct a thorough literature review of relevant studies and research projects, using library resources available at San Jose State University and Temple University. The review will identify all relevant studies, which will be summarized and documented using bibliographic software, such as EndNote or RefWorks. The full project team of Professor Flamm, Professor Agrawal, and the SJSU Student Research Assistant will participate in this task.

Task 2: IRB application

Professor Flamm and Professor Agrawal will prepare an application to submit to the SJSU Institutional Review Board for permission to conduct research using human subjects. The research questions that will be explored in this project are not of an unusually sensitive or controversial nature and the application will be prepared with clarity, precision, and thoroughness, so approval of the research project by the IRB is expected to be forthcoming.

Task 3: Focus group preparation

Working with Patricia Costanza of TMD Group, Professor Flamm and Professor Agrawal will design a screening and facilitation guide that translates the project research questions into a clear and focused focus group script, develop materials that TMD Group will use to recruit focus group participants, and organize dates and times to use a modern focus group facility for the focus group sessions

Task 4: Conduct four focus group sessions

Four focus groups will be conducted in the sixth month of the project. They will take place in modern focus group facilities in downtown Sacramento, California. Each session will be organized and conducted by a professional facilitator from TMD Group, and the sessions will be both audio and video recorded.

Task 5: Data entry, management, and analysis

The project team?s Student Research Assistant will transcribe each focus group session using the audio and video recordings. Transcriptions will be reviewed by Professor Flamm and Professor Agrawal, then entered into Atlas.ti qualitative data analysis software for coding and assessment. Additional quantitative analysis using descriptive statistical techniques will be used to describe the participants in the focus group sessions and compare them to the sample of respondents to the 2005 survey.

Task 6: Report writing

Professor Flamm and Professor Agrawal will write the final report for submission to the Mineta Transportation Institute. The report will document the research questions and approach, the methodology used, all findings and conclusions, and recommendations for practitioners and researchers.

Technology Transfer Activities:

Upon publication, pdf and html versions of the research project report will posted to the Mineta Transportation Institute web site. A journal article entitled –An Investigation into Constraints to Sustainable Vehicle Ownership and Use: A Focus Group Study –will be written and submitted to an academic, peer-reviewed journal, such as the International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, Transport Policy, or Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment. The paper will document the results of the four focus group conversations that explored the attitudes and travel behaviors of Sacramento, California residents, their perceptions of the constraints they face in aligning their attitudes with their behavior, and their opinions on methods of breaking down those constraints so that travel behavior change can be more easily realized.

Potential Benefits of Project:

The findings of this research project will provide detailed information that will inform subsequent research efforts, including future surveys designed to test whether key focus group findings may apply to the general population in California or nationwide. Results will include detailed assessments of the extent to which participants feel their actual travel behavior reflects their environmental attitudes, as well as detailed descriptions of any significant actual or perceived constraints that prevent participants from making more sustainable choices about their vehicle ownership and use. These findings will allow us to identify policies that could help people reduce the gap between their attitudes and behavior by encouraging individuals to make more sustainable choices about their vehicle ownership and use.

Project Funding: $60,715.00