Transport identities and sustainable cities

Background

Commuter cycling is a high-impact individual behaviour that will play a vital role in our transition to a more environmentally friendly way of living. Replacing frequent private vehicle use with cycling as a means of transport not only has many potential environmental benefits (such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution), but it also has a host of co-benefits for human health and wellbeing, such as improved physical health; benefits to local and national economies; decreased congestion; and social benefits, such as promoting the independence of young and elderly people. Investment in cycling infrastructure could have a greater a positive impact if it also elicits a positive spillover effect by catalysing further individual pro-environmental behaviour and collective advocacy for sustainable cities. Behavioural spillover is said to occur when acting in a pro-environmental way increases (positive spillover) or decreases (negative spillover) a person’s likelihood or extent of performing other pro-environmental behaviours. Commuter cycling is an attractive candidate as a catalyst for positive spillover on several grounds. Firstly, cycling is associated with a superordinate environmental identity, which may become strengthened while cycling, leading to greater pro-environmental behaviour. Secondly, it is a high-impact environmental behaviour, hence reducing opportunity costs that come with studying low-impact catalyst behaviours. Finally, it is associated with a ‘cyclist’ social identity, whereby contact with other group members and exposure to shared emotional experiences, social change beliefs (e.g., illegitimacy of the status quo, collective efficacy, cognitive alternatives), knowledge, and social support could provide gateways into political engagement/collective action. Social identity models of collective action have been used to explain vegan activism, environmental activism, and collective action in transport users. To date, cycling as a catalyst behaviour has only been investigated by one study that focused on health spillover effects. Furthermore, we will expand upon the social identity model proposed by Allert & Gerhard (2023) by examining the role of sustainable cognitive alternatives and perceived illegitimacy of car-centric planning. Findings from our qualitative study (unpublished) suggested that these factors may have an important role in prompting advocacy efforts, along with experiential learning processes. While such factors may be important for promoting advocacy behaviour in cyclists, they may also be important in promoting advocacy in other transport users. Hence, this study will compare this expanded version of the social identity model across transport user groups. We are interested in using an Australian (Melbourne) sample as Australia has high levels of car-dependency, despite 67% of Australians living in a capital city. Australia would also stand to benefit from improved urban sustainability due to its increasing climate change risks and cost of living. Hence, the context-specific nature of our research will be of interest to Australian decision-makers.

Research Questions / Hypotheses

Does transportation mode use (cycling, private car use, public transport) influence levels of engagement in collective action for sustainable cities?
How do social change beliefs (e.g., system legitimacy and cognitive alternatives) differ between cyclists, public transport users, and motorists?
What is the relationship between transport mode and transport user group identification?

Participants

Participants were 535 Melbourne residents and transport users (48%; 47% women). The sample had a median age of 34 (range: 18-82) and 33.5% were current higher education students. The sample were then classified as dominant public transport users (43%), bicycle users (31%), and car users (26%).

Methods

Participants completed an online survey that took 20 minutes on average to be completed. Participants were asked to provide their demographic information and answer a range of transport-related questions, e.g., their frequency of using various transport modes, their dominant mode of transport, whether they had ever used a bicycle as a means of transport, car ownership, mode enjoyment, and mode anger. They were also asked to complete several novel scales, such as a perceived illegitimacy scale, cognitive alternatives scale, sustainable policy support scale, perceived system stability items, and a modified collective action scale.

Results

A multigroup path analysis was undertaken in Lavaan using R. To compare for group differences, each path was iteratively constrained and chi-square difference tests used to examine whether constraining the path to be equal for all the groups would significantly worsen the model fit. If it did significantly worsen model fit, then the path was constrained to be the same across all groups (meaning there was no significant group differences). Standardised regression coefficients have been reported for each of the groups in the order of drivers, public transport users, and then cyclists. Note. ***p < .001, **p < .01, *p < .05. There were no significant group differences for the perceived illegitimacy to collective action path, nor perceived illegitimacy to cognitive alternatives, hence these paths were constrained in the final model. For all other paths, there were significant group differences. Perceived illegitimacy was a significant predictor of collective action across the groups (β = .30***, β = .26***, β = .19***). Being able to imagine a sustainable cognitive alternative was not a significant predictor for public transport users, but for drivers and cyclists (β = .21*, β = .04, β = .28***). This may be because the scale did not have many questions about public transport use in the future. Identification with the dominant transport group was only a significant predictor of collective action for public transport users (β = -.02, β = .22**, β = .19). This may be because public transport users need to engage in collective action if they want more extensive infrastructure, whereas cyclists (however dangerous and inconvenient it may be) can still chose to ride their bike on existing roads. The social identification scale did a poor job at capturing variability in cyclist identification, hence likely explaining why cyclist identification was not a significant predictor of collective action despite a high mean score. There was a strong negative relationship between driver identification and perceived illegitimacy, where drivers who strongly identified as drivers were less likely to perceive car-centric planning as illegitimate, as compared to PT users and cyclists (β = -.71***, β = .40***, β = .25*). These findings were also similar for identification as a predictor of cognitive alternatives (β = -.46***, β = .39***, β = .12). Finally, perceived illegitimacy was a strong significant predictor of cognitive alternatives for all groups (β = .64***, β = .58***, β = .52***). When the directionality was reversed, the effects held (β = .64***, β = .54***, β = .59***), suggesting a bi-directional relationship.

Implications

These findings suggest that perceived illegitimacy of car-centric planning positively predicts collective action for sustainable cities across all groups. There was evidence to suggest a bi-directional relationship between perceived illegitimacy and cognitive alternatives. The strong negative relationship between driver identification and perceived illegitimacy suggests a potential suppression effect, where strong driver identification reduces the effect of perceived illegitimacy on collective action. Further research could conduct an appropriately powered multigroup mediation analysis to investigate this indirect pathway.