Reducing car-use for leisure: a study of organised walking groups

What is it about?

The leisure travel market is a large and significant proportion of people who travel, yet it is very often not considered in projects and policy to encourage sustainable travel. This paper involved exploring the environmental attitudes and travel policies of organised walking groups who are a significant proportion of leisure travellers to countryside locations. Car dependency is common, and car sharing often involves meeting at a set location first. There is considerable resistance to using public transport to access group walks.

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Why is it important?

Groups who undertake leisure activities are an important focus of targeting efforts to encourage sustainable behaviour. The paper showed that a key element should be to target 'group-norms' in order to change the culture of car-dependency. There are a large number of people travelling to the counttryside and causing environmental degraation, by illicit parking or increased CO2 emissions. This is one area where policy could potentially make a large difference in mitigating these issues.

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