This week is our annual Greening week at the Psychology department! As part of this, the Psychology Energy and Environment Team (PEET) will be taking over the blog for a week. Each day we will post a psychology inspired post designed to get you thinking about some of the key environmental impacts covered by the Green Impact initiative. Today it is a blog about ‘Travel’, enjoy!
Using public transport and cycling are generally agreed to be sustainable alternatives of travel, compared to driving. How do we encourage public transport and bike travel?
According to a systematic review (Redman, Friman, Gärling & Hartig, 2013), individual perceptions, motivations, and context are the most important factors that determine whether car users switch their mode of transport. Service reliability and frequency of public transport were found to be the next factors taken in to consideration.
If you’re considering switching to public transport, the University offers discounted ticketing scheme, offering discounted monthly travel passes to both students and staff. Go to Travel South Yorkshire for a really useful journey planner.
Sheffield’s hills also offer a convenient workout! Walkit.com allows you to map your route, even giving you an estimate of your journey time, calories burned, and step count.
(Travel South Yorkshire website)
Changing travel mode from car to bike: Good for the environment, what about you?
Fraser and Lock (2011) noted that a major concern people have is the perceived and real safety concerns of cycling. They conducted a systematic review of intervention studies that attempted to increase cycling. Having cycling promoting environmental features, such as dedicated cycle routes, was an important factor for successful interventions. However, the role of self-efficacy and social support were argued to be more strongly associated with the likelihood of cycling uptake, compared to environmental features (Badland, Knuiman, Hooper & Giles-Corti, 2013).
The benefits and risk associated with cycling instead of driving as a mode of transport were further quantified in terms of life years gained or lost (De Hartog, Boogaard, Nijland & Hoek, 2010). Increased physical activity from cycling was associated with 3-14 months gain in life years, outweighing the risk of increased traffic accidents, which was a loss of 5-9 days.
Planning to get a bike? The popular refurbished bike sale (Facebook event page) for students will be on 11th March 2015 (Wed). You can get your bike checked and at cost servicing and repairs for staff and students at The Cycle Hut, located at the carpark of the Arts Tower. Bicycle D-lock and Bike lights can also be purchased at Dr Bike.
The psychology building also has cycle parking conveniently outside our building! For other cycle parking spaces on campus, check out cycle parking and useful resources.