People travel by car for a wide variety of reasons. A large proportion of household travel is for non-commuting purposes, including social and recreational journeys. The emergence and (potential) ...diffusion of highly automated vehicles, also known as autonomous vehicles (AVs), could transform the way (some) people work and travel. Should they become mainstream, AVs could reshape patterns of leisure travel. To date, however, the impacts and implications of AVs beyond commuting trips have received minimal attention from transport scholarship. This paper presents a state-of-the-art review of literatures on AVs. It follows PRISMA guidelines and synthesises 63 papers on AV travel focusing on non-commuting journeys, including travel for purposes of leisure, tourism, shopping and visiting friends and relatives. Given the economic importance of the tourism sector and its inherent focus on non-commuting journeys, this analysis is supplemented with a review of the extent to which national tourism strategies of countries leading AV deployment include reference to AVs. The paper reveals an overwhelming focus on commuting journeys in existing AV studies as less than one-fifth of the reviewed academic sources include non-commuting as part of their wider analysis. The review's further key findings are that the interest of publics in AVs for leisure journeys appears to exceed that for commuting, sharing vehicles will be less likely when AVs are used for leisure and there is an absence of recognition in the literature that certain non-commuting journeys will require a lower SAE level of automation. Surprisingly, analysis of the national tourism strategies of countries most prepared to meet the challenges of AVs shows that just three countries make specific reference to AVs within their national tourism strategies. The paper contributes to setting future AV policy agendas by concluding that two gaps must be narrowed: one, the distance between how academic studies predominantly conceive of AV use (commuting) and articulated public interest in AVs for non-commuting journeys; and two, the lack of readiness in certain national tourism strategies to accommodate AVs. As non-commuting journeys are likely to represent some of the earliest trip purposes for which AVs could be adopted, the paper points to the potential barriers to AV uptake by remaining focused on a limited set of trip purposes.
Learning about Climate Hopkins, Debbie
Weather, climate, and society,
10/2013, Letnik:
5, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
While the term “climate change” is highly recognized by the nonscientific general public, understandings of its manifestations are varied, contrasting, and complex. It is argued that this is because ...climate change has become simultaneously a physical and a social phenomenon. Thus, climate change is becoming socialized through nonscientific interpretation. Research has considered the roles of independent sources of information used to inform these communities, ranging from media sources to personal experiences. However, little consideration has been made of the interplay between information sources and how these sources are perceived by nonscientific communities in terms of trust. This paper presents a qualitative study of 52 ski industry stakeholders in Queenstown, New Zealand. It explores the sources of information used by these communities to construct understandings about climate change, their perceptions of these sources, the dominant interpretive factors, and the interactions between the information sources. It finds that personal experiences of weather are used to interpret other sources of information and are drawn upon to corroborate and reject the existence of climate change and its relevance for their locality. This paper concludes that locally relevant information on climate change is required to ensure that it is applicable to nonscientific realities and lived experiences.
The concept of ‘double energy vulnerability’ describes a circumstance whereby people are at heightened risk of energy poverty and transport poverty simultaneously – a particularly severe form of ...energy injustice. However, analysis of which people and places are most likely to experience this phenomenon remains limited. This paper begins to address this lacuna via a review of academic literature, aiming to pinpoint the overlapping socio-demographic and spatial factors that can increase vulnerability to both energy and transport poverty and thereby identify those most at-risk of experiencing double energy vulnerability. A systematic review of an extensive 5-year sample period is complemented by a narrative review of key papers. Combined, this encompasses a state-of-the-art analysis of 250 papers across 8 different academic databases. We find several overlaps in the socio-demographic groups rendered most vulnerable to energy and transport poverty, including people on low-incomes, older people, households with children or dependents, people with pre-existing health conditions or disabilities, women, and people from ethnic minorities. Spatially, however, there are more differences and contextual variations between the two problems, with inner-urban areas generally posing greater risks for energy poverty and suburban areas for transport poverty. Rural areas appear to be the spatial settings that have the greatest overlap in vulnerability. Overall, our results indicate that the highest level of double energy vulnerability is among households that face a combination of multiple socio-demographic disadvantages alongside relative spatial peripheralisation. We signal future research directions and policy implications arising from these findings.
The paralysis of global tourism caused by COVID-19 made it possible to conduct a unique and nearly real-time online survey to investigate adaptations and reactions to sudden severe leisure travel ...restrictions among residents in the Oslo metropolitan area of Norway during the 2020 Easter/spring holiday period. Stress relief, socialising, social bonds and discoveries of local recreation options were important home holiday experiences. Vacation challenges under lockdown included few opportunities for novelty and the chance of liminoid situations - reversal or bracketing of everyday routine existence. The enforced Easter staycation advanced reflections on impending leisure travel, indicating limited opportunities to boost future low-carbon near-home Easter holiday experiences. Path dependencies towards second homes and spatially stretched social obligations, as well as emphasis on freedom of movement, ostensibly constrain vacation travel habit discontinuities at this time of the year.
•Freight transport has been relatively overlooked in the qualitative social sciences.•Freight is a critical part of any low-carbon transport transition.•Growth in home delivery is fundamentally ...changing the urban freight industry.•There are significant change trends to which the industry must adapt.•Change trends impact upon the industry’s ability to make low-carbon decisions.
In this paper we present the findings of a qualitative investigation of change trends in urban freight deliveries. The empirical material was gathered with urban freight (courier) company managers and drivers in Aotearoa New Zealand. It presents personal accounts of the everyday lived experiences of those intimately involved in the delivery of goods within the urban environment. Twenty-five interviews were conducted across four urban centres between June and September 2015. We use the four elements of the Energy Cultures Framework to explore what urban freight managers and drivers ‘have’, ‘do’ and ‘think’, and the pressures of an external context. Four interrelated themes are presented. 1. Online shopping and home deliveries, 2. Tracking and transparency, 3. New technologies, and 4. Meeting (changing) expectations, with evidence provided by way of verbatim quotations. The ‘mobility cultures’ concept is used to explore the relationships between the four themes, and to identify the key change trends that may affect the ability of the freight industry to contribute to a low-carbon transport transition. We conclude by signalling some policy implications and future research directions.
•Empirical study of double energy vulnerability (DEV) in all four UK nations.•Being locked into poor energy and transport infrastructure worsens DEV.•Those facing high costs and low incomes are ...particularly affected.•People must choose between different energy and transport services.•DEV leads to social exclusion, impacting life chances and overall quality of life.
Experiences of poverty can manifest in multiple aspects of everyday life, often in interlinking ways. One example is ‘double energy vulnerability’, where a household faces both energy poverty and transport poverty simultaneously. This can result in trade-offs, where prioritising one essential need (e.g., transport) makes accessing another impossible (e.g., heating). Such decisions are not easily made, and they can have distinct spatio-temporal characteristics. They can vary between space and time and across different household members, and result in stark inter- as well as intra-household differences. People with socio-demographic and contextual vulnerabilities are particularly at risk of experiencing double energy vulnerability. Based on 59 household interviews across the four nations of the United Kingdom, we provide novel, multi-nation empirical evidence on the lived experiences of double energy vulnerability, drawing on our themes; ‘being locked into infrastructure’, ‘facing high costs and low incomes’, ‘choosing between energy and transport’, and ‘missing out’. A cross-national lived-experiences approach sheds light on double energy vulnerability as a relational, contingent and ongoing phenomena, attending to everyday experiences and capacities. We provide suggestions for further research, such as further study of double energy vulnerability amongst refugees and migrants. We also highlight that the study of lived experiences can aid the recognition of how different forms of poverty intersect and how they need to be taken into account in the design of Net Zero policies.
The need to transition away from the current car-dominated transport system is well documented in sustainability, health and transportation literatures. Despite growing interest in active and public ...transport modes, the car still dominates travel preferences for most age groups. There is, however, some evidence of declining preferences for car-based travel for younger generations. In this paper, we use empirical material gathered through a mixed methods study of high school students in Dunedin, New Zealand, to explore the aspirations of adolescents for private car-based transport. We present and interpret findings from a quantitative survey of high school students (n = 1240) and qualitative focus groups (n = 10 focus groups, 54 participants). Contrary to somewhat optimistic reports of reduced aspiration for driving and cars, we find evidence of ongoing preference for car-based transport, and intentions to learn to drive amongst the cohort of young urban millennials. The findings signal the importance of socialisation processes and everyday travel decisions (e.g. mode choice) for long term aspirations to replicate practices of automobility. Such findings have important implications for interventions to increase non-motorised mobilities, and reduce dependence on private vehicles across the transport system.
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