MOBILANZ

The project MOBILANZ is one out of ten funded groups of the research programme "socio-ecological research" at Federal Ministry of Education and Research. During the project duration from 2002 to 2007, three mobility-oriented research perspectives are linked. The social and behavioural sciences perspective creates a target group-oriented model (mobility patterns) for the mobility behaviour in the large cities Augsburg, Bielefeld and Magdeburg. The environmental sciences quantify and evaluate the impacts on the environment which stem from mobility behaviour. The planning sciences form strategies for environmental and socially friendly mobility services. The objective of linking these three perspectives, is to recommend target group-oriented measures to reduce the individual energy consumption in the transport sector with the help of mobility services.

Since the end of the year 2003, quantitative surveys in the investigated cities Bielefeld, Augsburg and Magdeburg are completed. Interviews with 1991 people were analysed. Starting from eight selected attitudes, five different mobility patterns were found. These comprise groups of people which share similar values, objectives and attitudes regarding their mobility behaviour: People who are obsessed with mobility but do not use public transport, passenger car-individualists, weather-independent bike fans, environmentally sensitised fans of public transport and self-determined mobile people.

An individual eco-balance was assessed for every interviewee on the basis of their mobility behaviour with the help of Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. The five different mobility patterns are characterised through significant differences in their eco-balance.

The assessed mobility patterns mark five target groups for the introduction of mobility services which relieve the environment. MOBILANZ estimated the potentials for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions regarding different mobility services based on public transport and the passenger car. Another criterion is that the reduction has to be achieved with the help of a moderate improvement of the respective offers for the users. The estimation of the potential was done separately for each mobility pattern. Therefore, 82 depth interviews were conducted with representatives of the different mobility patterns about the use of optimised mobility services.

The quantification of the potentials for reduction showed - based on the 1851 kilos of greenhouse gas emissions, caused by transport, as assessed in the standardised survey per capita and year - that between 25 and 78 kilos per capita and year could be saved depending on the used mobility service. This parallels a potential of reduction of about 4.2 % and respectively 1.3 %. An extrapolation of these savings adds up to a reduction of 1.8 million tons of greenhouse gases for the adult population of a German large city in the basic year 2003. The largest relative potentials for reduction can be found among the self-determined mobile people (7.9 %). The largest absolute savings were detected among the people who are obsessed with mobility but do not use public transport (109 kilos per capita and year). Priorities for behaviour-relevant measures, which are to be taken, can be derived from the assessed potentials for reduction. For a success of these measures, target group-oriented information and communication strategies are recommended on the basis of knowledge on the attitudes and values of the mobility patterns.

The findings from MOBILANZ are integrated into the fields of psychology, environmental sciences and planning sciences:

• Susanne Böhler: Mobilitätsdienstleistungen als Baustein einer nachhaltigen Verkehrsplanung. (Mobility Services as a Basis for Sustainable Transport Planning) Doctoral thesis at Universität Dortmund.
• Sylvie Grischkat: Umweltbilanzierung von individuellem Mobilitätsverhalten. (Eco-Balancing of Individual Mobility Behaviour) Doctoral thesis at University of Lüneburg.
• Sonja Haustein: Personale Determinanten des Mobilitätsverhaltens und der mobilitätsbezogenen Umweltwirkungen. (Personal Determinants of Mobility Behaviour and Mobility-Related Impacts on the Environment) Doctoral thesis at Ruhr-Universität Bochum.