Transportation choices : can social marketing make a difference?

In the US, automobile use is responsible for 25% of air pollution, resulting in health and respiratory problems, and increasing the likelihood of climate change. In order to limit these negative impacts of automobile use, governmental bodies and transportation agencies employ a number of different strategies including changes in transportation policy, infrastructure, and technology. Marketing and advertising campaigns represent another strategy which is used extensively, but which has not been thoroughly evaluated. This thesis investigates how to develop marketing campaigns that will encourage people to voluntarily switch to alternative modes of transportation such as walking, biking, or using transit. The field of Social Marketing provides valuable insight into how marketing and promotional strategies can be used more generally to encourage the adoption of behavior changes that benefit health, the environment, and the social condition; a model of the Social Marketing process and principles is assembled and used to evaluate three examples of transportation marketing campaigns in the US: San Francisco's "Spare the Air" campaign, the Chicago Transit Authority's New Residents program, and the federal "It All Adds Up to Cleaner Air" campaign. While the specific campaigns vary greatly in terms of the tactics they employ, ranging from advertising on billboards to providing free subway rides, a common thread is that these tactics must be based on careful understanding of the values of the target audience (the people the campaign is meant to reach), and the barriers they see to changing behavior.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Sorell, Miriam Lydia

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• J. Mark Schuster.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33037

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33037