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KLIMAFORSK-Stort program klima

PATHWAYS - towards reduced climate footprints in everyday and long-distance leisure mobilities

Alternative title: PATHWAYS - på vei mot redusert klimaavtrykk av korte og lange fritidsreiser

Awarded: NOK 9.4 mill.

The project 'PATHWAYS towards reduced climate footprints in everyday and long-distance leisure mobilities' aims at creating new insights about public acceptance and understanding of climate mitigation and adaptation measures within local/regional and long-distance leisure mobilities. The project will enhance knowledge about more sustainable leisure travel innovations in both private and public sector and assess private and public sector practical and experimental novelties aimed at reducing climate footprints. Moreover, the project will elucidate opportunities and barriers for society's strategies and capacities to design and implement measures for reduced leisure travel-related climate footprints. An additional objective is to advance mitigation roadmaps (pathways) to support travel and tourism associations, enterprises and public authorities to engage with and adapt to more climate-friendly and sustainable leisure mobilities. PATHWAYS will furthermore augment implementation and assessment of leisure mobility pilot projects in cooperation with business, public sector, and NGO partners. Moreover, project outcomes will offer novel insights for climate governance and mobility policy instruments and propose leisure business strategies contributing to emission reductions. The Covid-19 pandemic led to several changes in the project, when there were at times significant restrictions on Norwegians' holiday and leisure travel. At the same time, the pandemic provided unique opportunities to study more and less forced travel changes as well as potentials for permanently changing travel habits on the basis of new experiences during and after the pandemic. In 2020 and 2021, the project conducted four online surveys among people in the Oslo area; A survey on compulsory home holidays during Easter 2020 and three surveys on summer holidays characterized by some travel restrictions. In addition, online in-depth interviews were conducted about households' travel habits, holiday experiences during the pandemic and attitudes and thoughts about future holiday travel. In collaboration with the partners, an online survey of users/travellers has been conducted in the period 2021-2023, and a number of online in-depth interviews of users of the leisure travel pilot projects Green Card (DNT) and On-Demand Transport/Mountain Routes (Innlandstrafikk) the two partners are conducting. In the autumn of 2022, a panel-based survey was also conducted on Norwegians' leisure travel by plane abroad. The academic project partners are the Institute of Transport Economics - Norwegian Centre for Transport Research (project management), University of Oxford, University of Otago, and Norwegian University of Science and Technology. In addition, the Norwegian Trekking Association and Innlandstrafikk are partners in the project. In addition, the bus company NORWAY bussekspress has also participated in the project.

The project will provide concrete and policy relevant knowledge to establish a roadmap towards more sustainable leisure mobilities. Results will aid businesses, public authorities and organisations involved in developing and promoting greener and more attractive travel options that are realistically competitive. Outcomes will also help to avoid inadequate product designs and investments. Public authorities, NGOs and private enterprises will benefit from travel pilot projects assessments in terms of service mix, market adoption, user experiences and behaviour change potentials. The pilot schemes will serve as learning platforms that participants and other interests may use to explore and further develop novel services and expand marketplaces. Empirically-grounded and enhanced understanding of leisure travel-related choices and practices will help spur green growth and increase green value creation. Moreover, the project will support attainment of UN's sustainable development goals. The PATHWAYS project has completed field research studies of two cooperating pilot projects administered by the collaborating partners Norwegian Trekking Association (DNT), Innlandstrafikk, and with Norway Bussekpress as an additional pilot company participant. The pilot studies have provided value information to the service providers about travelers experiences and attitudes toward the piloted sustainable bus and cabin-based travel options. In addition, the five online panel surveys and accompanying personal interviews have provided new knowledge about Norwegian’s' leisure travel, the potential for Norwegians to choose more sustainable travel options, and attitudes towards different policy measures. Results have been disseminated in academic publications and popular media and conferences. There are five peer-reviewed article manuscripts submitted to scientific international journals, which are in different stages of the review process, and are expected to be published in 2024. In adition one book chapter produced is accepted for publication, and expected to be published in July 2024.

Passenger transport in Norway and elsewhere is a huge and rapidly growing source of global GHG emissions and has been depicted as a major roadblock to climate change mitigation. Still, there is a dearth of research on realistic potentials to reduce emissions from leisure travel such as local/regional journeying (mostly car-based) and long-distance tours (mainly aviation), as transition towards a low-emission society will require considerable travel alterations. Simultaneously, there is great uncertainty about how leisure mobilities may evolve, since demand-side travel adaptation to climate change mitigation has received limited research attention. In collaboration with NGOs and private and public sector partners, the present project will challenge mobility provision systems. The project will create new knowledge about general public comprehension and acceptance of climate mitigation and adaptation measures within local/regional and long-distance leisure mobilities. It will also support development of more sustainable leisure travel services in the private and the public sector and assess experimental pilot projects aimed at reducing climate footprints of leisure mobilities. Additionally, outcomes will elucidate opportunities and barriers related to society's strategies and capacities to design and implement reduced leisure travel-related climate footprints and advance mitigation roadmaps to support travel and tourism associations, enterprises and public authorities to engage with and adapt to more climate-friendly and sustainable leisure mobilities. New aspects of support and engagements that speed up societal transformations towards lower leisure travel GHC emissions will be illuminated. The project will also consider how governance structures can be set up to design and support policies for leisure travel options with smaller climate footprints.

Publications from Cristin

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Funding scheme:

KLIMAFORSK-Stort program klima