Cabbies, Costs and Climate Change

8/3/2019 Cabbies, Costs and Climate Change

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Cabbies, Costs and Climate Chang

Cabbies, Costsand ClimateChange

An engaged approach to uelecient behaviour

Jonathan Rowsonand Jamie Young

December 2011


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About the RSA

The RSA has been a source o ideas, innovationand civic enterprise or over 250 years. In thelight o new challenges and opportunities orthe human race our purpose is to encourage thedevelopment o a principled, prosperous societyby identiying and releasing human potential.This is reected in the organisations recentcommitment to the pursuit o what it calls 21stcentury enlightenment.

Through lectures, events, pamphlets andcommissions, the RSA provides a ow orich ideas and inspiration or what might berealised in a more enlightened world; essentialto progress but insufcient without action.RSA Projects aim to bridge this gap betweenthinking and action. We put our ideas towork or the common good. By researching,designing and testing new ways o living, wehope to oster a more inventive, resourceuland ulflled society. Through our Fellowshipo 27,000 people the RSA aims to be a sourceo capacity, commitment and innovation incommunities rom the global to the local.

About the Social Brain Project

The notion o a rational individual whomakes decisions consciously, consistentlyand independently is, at best, a very partialaccount o who we are. Science is now tellingus what most o us intuitively sense - humansare a undamentally social species. Sciencecannot, however, tell us what to do with thisknowledge, and it is up to us to shape our livesaccordingly.

Since its inception in early 2009, the Social

Brain project has sought to make theories ohuman nature more accurate through research,explicit through public dissemination, andempowering through practical engagement.We are now building on this work with anew initiative linking theory and practice,provisionally called the RSA Social BrainCentre, which seeks to support personaldevelopment and wellbeing, inorm social andeducational practice and improve fnancial andenvironmental behaviour.

For more inormation,please contact Jonathan Rowson:[email protected]


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Cabbies, Costs and Climate Change

Contents

Acknowledgements 2

Executive Summary 3

Introduction 5

Behaviour 7

Goal 13

Experience 16

Feedback 23

Refections 26

Proposals 28

Endnotes 30


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This report eatures a rare study

o taxi drivers in their workinghabitats, and presents wider lessonsabout the challenges o efcient ueluse in the context o rising energyprices and climate change.4 Howeveryou conceive the climate problem,efciency is an important part o thesolution.

Petrol prices have risen by 32%since 2009. While debates abouthow to deal with rising energy coststhrough fscal levers and regulationwill continue, this report highlights

the role behaviour change can play inreducing costs.

Behaviour change is central to ourattempts to address anthropogenicclimate change or our main reasons:First, we need all the quantitativereductions in carbon in the atmospherethat we can get. Second, the impact otechnology and regulation is relativeto the responsiveness o human

behaviour. Third, or all its abunda

complexities, human behaviour canbe changed airly quickly, and speedis o the essence. Fourth, behaviourdrives attitudes, and we increase threlevance o climate change mosteectively when we connect it to thprocesses and outcomes that matterpeople on a daily basis.

To better understand this kindo engaged approach to behaviourchange, the RSA sought to help taxidrivers turn helpul inormation abouel efcient behaviour into endurin

dispositions. This exploratory study part o RSAs more ambitious attempto understand how to make positivebehaviour habitual, perormed withoconscious thought, and contagious,through which positive behaviourspreads through social diusionbetween individuals and groups.5

Shells uel save tips comprisea range o pieces o advice, rom

Executive

Summary

On average the driversdrove 20% more uelefciently than theirbaseline measures,representing cash savingso 1146 per year or eachcabbie


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choice o oil, driving speed, carweight, personal comort and journeyplanning.6 We chose to ocus on thechallenges o implementing thesetips with Hackney Carriage driversdue to their proessional interest inreducing the costs o driving, theirdriving expertise, and because otheir potential capacity to inuence

a large number o passengersrom a range o backgrounds. Weworked with twenty drivers, tworom each o the ollowing cities:London, Birmingham, Manchester,Nottingham, Bristol, Glasgow,Norwich, Sunderland, Shefeld andPortsmouth.

This was an exploratory studydesigned to learn about the challengeso driving more uel efciently, andto raise awareness o the fnancialand environmental value o doing

so. The aim was not to test aparticular hypothesis, or quantiy theeectiveness o any single approach,but to better understand the challengeso changing environmental behaviouror a particular subset o energy users.

The attempts to begin to makeuel efcient behaviour habitual andcontagious included:

An incentive to participate and winin a national competition

Continual comparative onlineeedback

Specialist advice on uel efcientdriving in real time contexts

Inormed reinorcement o drivingand car maintenance advice

We also hosted a deliberativeworkshop with some o the cabbies,where we discussed some relevant

fndings rom behavioural science tohelp them address the action gapbetween knowing what to do andactually doing it, and to become moreaware o their potential inuence onother drivers. During this event, ourmodifcations to the taxi habitat wereco-designed with the cabbies:

A silk money bag to prime the ideao smooth driving

Dashboard stickers to makeeedback more immediately relevant

A passenger journal designedto stimulate discussion on uelefciency

A spring device giving audioeedback on harsh braking andacceleration

Telemetry devices were installedin the taxis, which recorded our

behaviours that are particularlywasteul o uel: idling, over-revving,harsh acceleration and harsh brakingThe drivers were measured over amonth relative to a two-week baselinmeasure, and or two weeks aterthe competition. The uel efciencyalgorithm was weighted towardsimprovement in these our behaviour

relative to baseline measures, ratherthan overall perormance, to helpcontrol or dierences in vehicles anddriving conditions. Four drivers wereasked to keep a written diary o theiruel use in context, and two droppedout due to unoreseen circumstances,so the fnal quantitative data samplewas ourteen drivers.

While the sample size is too smallto draw conclusions about whichparticular interventions were mosteective, the indicative results or theoverall approach were promising. Onaverage the drivers drove 20% moreuel efciently than their baselinemeasures, representing cash savings o1146 per year or each cabbie.7

The recommendations arising romthe project as a whole are outlined indetail at the end o this report. Theyinclude making habitual behaviour(rather than just behaviour) the ocuso interventions, making uel efcienca pass/ail criterion on the driving teschanging driving habitats to encouraguel efciency, incentivising taxi

drivers to become ambassadors oruel efciency, providing more salienteedback, and making taxis greener.

This was an exploratorystudy designed to learnabout the challengeso driving more uelefciently, and to raiseawareness o the fnancialand environmental value

o doing so.

One o the co-designed modifcations we tested


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In the late autumn o 2011 we learnedthat the world pumped about 564mmore tons o carbon dioxide into the

air in 2010 than it did in 2009, anincrease o 6%.9 Levels o greenhousegases are now higher than the worstcase scenario outlined by climateexperts our years ago.10 Carbondioxide stays in the atmosphere ordecades, and or every year thatwe increase emissions like this, wewill have to reduce them even moredrastically, and thereore with evenmore difculty in the uture. Suchincreases are not merely a sign that weare ailing to adapt to the challenge o

climate change, but also a signal thatrelying exclusively on technologicaland market-driven fxes is oolhardy.

Bluntly stated, we are not gettingit. As John Reilly, the co-director oMITs Joint Program on the Scienceand Policy o Global Change put it:The more we talk about the need tocontrol emissions, the more they aregrowing.11

So what do we do? Climatechange is a multi-dimensional globchallenge, raising proound scientif

technological, political and ethicalquestions. Yet the mismatch betweethe scale o the challenge and existieorts to address the problem poinsomething more troublingly prosaicFor those who are not workingdirectly to address the issue, Climachange lacks salience. While it mayviewed as signifcant in general termor most o us it is not importantenough, immediate and personalenough, to compel us to change ourbehaviour because o it.

The distinct and somewhatterriying challenge o climate chanis that by the time it becomes salienwith major impacts on peoples liveand livelihoods, it may be too lateto prevent irreversible degradationo our quality o lie. Changingbehaviour now is a critical part o tsolution, but creating, motivating asupporting such change requires th

IntroductionThe worlds top climatescientists are now

ringing the alarm bellsat a deaening volumebecause the time to acthas virtually passed, yetit is as i the requencyo the chime is beyondthe threshold o humanhearing.

Clive Hamilton8


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the issue becomes more salient in thepopulation at large.

Scientifc announcements, no matterhow dire, do not seem to help inthis regard. In this report we suggestthat making an issue personally andrepeatedly relevant to people is bestachieved by ocussing on the needsand interests o particular individuals

within particular groups. This kindo approach requires targeted anddiscerning engagement, through acareul understanding o the needs,habits and opportunities o the peoplewithin the selected groups.

This report details a modest attemptto increase the salience o climatechange in general, and the importance

o uel efciency in particular, or aselection o taxi drivers across thecountry. Our engagement with thedrivers went well beyond simpleinormation dissemination. The processas a whole included an incentiveto participate and win a nationalcompetition, continual comparativeonline eedback, specialist adviceon uel efcient driving in real timecontexts, inormed reinorcement odriving and car maintenance advice,our modifcations to the taxi habitat

including dashboard stickers to makeeedback more immediately relevant,a silk money bag to prime the ideao smooth driving, a device to giveaudio eedback on harsh brakingand acceleration and a journal toallow passengers to give eedbackon the smoothness o the drive. Wealso oered some behavioural insightto deal with the value-action gap

between knowing what to do andactually doing it.

This was an exploratory studyconducted within the paradigm oparticipatory action research. Thework was motivated by a desire tohelp taxi drivers drive more uelefciently and to raise awareness o theenvironmental and fnancial benefts

o doing so. The principal aim was notthereore to quantiy the eectivenesso any single approach, but rather tofnd out more about how a particularsubset o energy users respond toeorts to help them change.

The drivers change in behaviourwas measured by telemetry devicesinstalled in the taxis, which recordedour actions that are particularlywasteul o uel: idling, over-revving,harsh acceleration and harsh braking.The drivers were measured or a twoweek baseline measure, then overa month during which a numbero interventions were made, andfnally or a subsequent two weeks.The uel efciency algorithm wasweighted towards improvement inthese our behaviours relative tobaseline measures, rather than overallperormance, to help control ordierences in vehicles and drivingconditions. Four drivers were asked tokeep written notes o their uel use, andtwo dropped out due to unoreseencircumstances, so the fnal quantitative

data sample was ourteen drivers.While the sample size is too small

to draw conclusions about whichparticular interventions were mosteective, the overall results werepromising, with cabbies on averagedriving approximately 20% more uelefciently than their baseline measures.This represents a cash value o 1146per year or each cabbie. The winningdriver, Bernie rom Norwich, drove45% better than baseline, representinga signifcant prospective personal

saving o about 927 over a year.12

This fnal report ollows rom ourinterim report, Inside the Mind of aCabbie,13 to detail the action researchprocess, reect on the results o thecompetition, and consider how thisoverall project might inorm the widerdiscussion around more engagedorms o behaviour change in thecontext o climate change.

The winning driver, Bernierom Norwich, drove

45%

better

than baseline, representinga personal saving o about

927 over a year

The overall results werepromising, with cabbieson average drivingapproximately 20% moreuel efciently than theirbaseline measures.


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Climate Change:Behaviour is not a side issue*

This report grows out o collaboration

between RSAs Social Brain projectand one o the worlds largest energycompanies, Shell. It is thereore worthbriey commenting on Shells broaderperspective on climate change, to placethe emphasis on behaviour change anduel efciency in context.

Shells energy scenarios up to2050 include a oreboding Scramblescenario in which the path o leastresistance in the present leads toheightened global tensions over uel.However, there is also a Blueprints

scenario in which coalitions ointerests begin to adapt to the scale othe challenge, and positive outcomesare built up rom the distributedpursuit o individually modestopportunities and objectives.14

This paper speaks to these modestbut very necessary opportunitiesand objectives, and orms part o

the eort to shit the public moodin support o the kinds o deepersolutions needed to deal withanthropogenic climate change.

A combination o high levelso economic growth in developingcountries, the perceived imperativeo economic growth in developedcountries, and a rise in global populameans that, short o a radical overhao the entire world economic andpolitical system, the worlds energy nwill continue to grow. The question

how that growing energy demand cabe met in a sustainable way is extremcomplex and increasingly urgent. Shesum up the challenge or energy andplanet in fve words: more energy, lescarbon dioxide.15

BehaviourIn light o the risingdemand or energy, Dr

Graham Sweeney at Shellargues that it is likely thatby 2050, when we areexpected to have 9 billionpeople, o whom willlive in cities, 60% o theworlds energy needs willstill be met by ossil uels.

* The ollowing section provides the theoretical rationale or the value o this project in the cono climate change, and or RSAs approach to behaviour change that underpinned it. Those wisto read about the practical project can go straight to the Experience section.


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In light o the rising demand orenergy, Dr Graham Sweeney at Shellargues that it is likely that by 2050,when we are expected to have 9billion people, o whom will live incities, 60% o the worlds energy needwill still be met by ossil uels.16 In thcontext, he sums up the Shell attitudeto climate change by saying they are

committed to doing the doable. DrSweeney also emphasised the needto reposition our thinking so thataction to support progress to a lowercarbon world is recognised as addingeconomic value.17

Shells current approach includesproducing more natural gas,developing lower-carbon biouels,helping to advance carbon captureand storage (CCS) technologies, andworking to improve energy efciencyin their operations. Shell has alsocampaigned or a more eectivecarbon market and have created theirown value or CO2. While the carbonprice in Europe is currently between6 and 8 per tonne18 (UN Certifcateso Emission Reductions and EuropeaUnion Allowances both ell to a recorlow in late November), Shell uses avalue o about 25 per tonne o CO2when evaluating all new projects.19

Technological innovation andcarbon markets are signifcant andcommendable responses to the climatchange problem. At the same time,

it is important to state that i it doestranspire that 60% o our energyneeds will be met by ossil uels in2050, this will be not be as a naturaldeault, but as the result o strategicchoices made by governments andenergy companies. Moreover, theimpact o that outlook is in tensionwith the vision o the InternationalEnergy Agency (IEA), oten considerethe gold standard on emissionsand energy, and generally relativelyconservative rather than alarmist in

outlook.20

The IEAs perspective isrelevant because it suggests one othe main reasons that the windowto prevent global temperature risesabove sae levels is rapidly closingis the continual investment in ossiluel inrastructure, supported byGovernment subsidies.21

Shell describes the energy problemby developing Margaret Thatchers

Fig 1: Stabilization Wedges, Carbon Mitigation Initiative,Princeton University

Fig 2: Eight Stabilization Wedges Required, Carbon MitigationInitiative, Princeton University,

16

8

1.6

0

1950 2000 2050 2100

Billions of tonscarbon emitted per year

Towardtripling

CO2

Avoiddoubling

CO2

Flat path

l

Current

path=

ram

p

StabilizationTriangle

Historicalemissions

ilili i i l

i illii i

16

8

2000 2050

i li

ili

l

Flat path

Emissio

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gpath

ili ii l

i i li i

StabilizationTriangle

8 wedges are needed

to build thestabilization triangle

1 wedge avoids 1 billiontons of carbon emissionsper year by 2055


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carbon stays in the atmosphere orabout a hundred years. For thosewho believe that technology willsolve the problem, this act should behighly signifcant. Even ater scientifcbreakthroughs, technological changeand implementation takes a long time,and during that time the problem willhave become that much worse, and

progressively more difcult to solve.An article in Nature in 2009identifed two common laws oenergy technology success in thepast. First, it takes 30 years or a newtechnology to reach 12% o theglobal energy mix. Second, the newenergy technology then grows morelinearly to its fnal share dependent oneconomic competitiveness.27

Shell is one o many energycompanies that believe these constraintsalso apply to related technologies, eveni at frst glance they may appear to bejust around the corner, whether thatbe advanced biouels rom biomass,hydrogen uelled cars, or even electriccars that are already rolling o theproduction lines. For example, atoptimistic production rates it may takeuntil about 2030 (20+ years) or 40million electric cars to penetrate theUS market and even then that wouldrepresent only about 16% o theAmerican eet.28

In Shells two Energy Scenarios,mentioned above, the analysis

suggested that even the mostoptimistic scenario, Blueprints,which assumed a trajectory otechnology innovation never achievedbeore, would still result in levelso approximately 650ppm or allgreenhouse gases and a temperaturerise above 3C in 2100 relative topre-industrial levels. This outcome issignifcantly higher than the 450ppmand 2C levels that are generallytalked about as representing saelimits.29

In other words, even on the mostoptimistic assessment, technology alonecannot solve the problem in time. I wewant to keep temperature rises withinthe two degrees, as the UN believes isimperative, we need other measuresthat, even i they do not amount toadequate solutions by themselves in thelong term, have a direct impact in theshort term so that long term prospects

are improved. As things stand,technology is likely to be too slow,there is political drit, and no viableglobal carbon market, all o whichmakes changes in human attitudesand behaviour an imperative, not leastbecause movement on that ront mayhelp to shit inertia elsewhere.

4. Behaviour Drives Attitudes

It would appear to be commonsense that attitudes and behaviourare linked, and that attitudes drivebehaviour rather than vice-versa.On this common sense view, iyou want people to behave inan environmentally riendly waythey need to frst care about theenvironment, and once that change inattitude is achieved, environmentallyriendly behaviour will ollow.However, the evidence on this issueis somewhat equivocal. Behavioursand attitudes are oten disjunctive andwe requently say one thing and doanother. Moreover, as indicated below,a great deal depends on how yourame, defne, and measure behaviourand attitude. However, the balanceo evidence is that behaviours driveattitude as much i not more thanthe other way round.30 Moreover, theinuence o attitude on behaviourseems to depend a lot on the extent towhich behaviour is habitual, which isa large extent in the case o drivers in

general, and taxi drivers in particular.31One implication is that i you want

to get somebody to care about theenvironment, dont preach to themabout its importance, but get themto behave in an environmentallyriendly way through some otherorm o stimulus or incentive and theimportance may become clearer tothem. In this context, an intelligentway to raise the salience o climatechange is to rame the saving o uel asa personal and environmental gain.32

Why does this matter? In additionto the behavioural wedge we needto save, the multiplier eect and therelative ease o changing behaviourquickly, working to change behaviouris potentially a way to galvanise otherorms o action and by changingattitudes through people, to helpbuild political will or social andgovernment action on climate change.

What Kinds o BehaviourChange do we Need?Given the importance of behaviourchange, making sense of what wemean by behaviour is not of merephilosophical value, but directlyinforms how we might go abouttrying to change it. While we cannotexplore this question in depth here,

to make sense o the diverse range oapproaches to behaviour change inthis project a brie overview o thesebig questions is required. What isbehaviour? What kinds o behaviourchange do we need?33

Classic psychological behaviourismpopular in the nineteen sixties,was based on the idea that there isno meaningul dierence betweenpublicly observable processes inthe orm o actions, and privatelyobservable processes like thinking aneeling. For classical behaviourists,i two drivers stop idling in responseto the inormation that idling wastesuel, there is little point in asking themwhether they did it because they careabout the money or the climate, orboth, because the stimulus (inormationand the response (behaviour) arenot thought to be meditated by anyscientifcally accessible thought oreeling.

There are ew sel-respectingbehaviourists o that mould in theworld today. Increasingly sophisticated

accounts o cognition, languageacquisition, meaning making, reexivitycultural inuences and neuropsychologmean that classical behaviourism hasbeen rejected as a credible perspective.3

However, when thinking aboutbehaviour change it is easy to lapseinto this kind o simplistic perspectiveon behaviour without realising you aredoing it.

In its view o human cognition,Nudge is very dierent rombehaviourism, but it is vulnerable

to similar moral critiques. While thelibertarian paternalism that underpinsNudge stems rom an understandingo human biases and recognises mentalprocesses, it still views behaviour interms o individual actions respondingto changes in environmental stimuli.While Sunstein and Thaler, the authorsoNudge, state that they respectindividual reedom and their aim is to


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maximise choice, the emphasis is onsending cues to the automatic systemso that it responds dierently to how itmight have behaved without that cue,usually by increasing the likelihood othe choice predicted by those designingthe nudge. While a classical behaviouristwould change behaviour graduallythrough conditioning, nudges oten

have a more direct and immediateeect, but the model is still based onasymmetries o power and knowledge,and in this respect can be thought o ascrypto-behaviourist.35

Such an approach has already shownits power and relevance, but it hassome limitations.36 Perhaps the mostimportant limitation is that nudges tendto work on issues where people eelrelatively indierent between choicesthat are not o daily relevance, likeorgan donation or whether to opt intopension schemes, rather than on issueswhere desire, convenience and habitare paramount, like dietary choices ordriving habits.37 Major social problems,including the waste o energy, arisemostly because people oten preer todo things that arent in their long-terminterest or the collective interest. Asenvironmentalist Tim Chatterton putit, it is easier to nudge people downhillthan to nudge them uphill.38

A less behaviourist, moreautonomous orm o nudging wouldrecognise that people have the capacity

to reect on their choices in light otheir values, and in response to whatthey learn about their habit-ormingand decision-making tendencies. Suchan approach, like the one we conductedwith taxi drivers, is more labourintensive, and harder to scale, but maygive us more chance to change notmerely behaviours, but also some o thevalues and attitudes that underpin them.

Shell is to be commended orrecognising the importance o having atheory o behaviour, rather than trying

to measure or change it without anyontological basis. They view behaviouras a orm o goal-pursuit, summarised asollows:39

All our behaviours result rom the

pursuit o goals. We have a hierarchy

o goals, rom long-term abstract

strategies or living, to very short-

term, concrete, in-the-moment goals.

Ultimately all our goals derive rom

the biological imperatives we have to

survive and reproduce, in the physical

and social environments we grow up

and live in. That means that while

some o our goals are unctional,

many are symbolic they are about

signalling about ourselves to other

people. Although were aware o some

o goals, and pursue them consciously,we have many others that were not

aware o, and pursue automatically, or

example out o habit. Finally, people

pursue multiple goals at the same time.

Some complement each other, and

make particular behaviours more likely.

Others conict, and compete in our

minds to control our behaviour.

This approach goes beyond sayingbehaviour is a response to cues inthe environment, and suggests thatthe perception o environmental cueswill be viewed with respect to ourgoals. The goal-seeking perspectivehelps to dierentiate behaviour rommere action and is very useul in thecontext o uel efciency. For instance,driving behaviour is oten connectedto symbolic goals, and may serve tosignal reedom to onesel and statusto others. The explanatory power othis perspective depends upon havinga rich account o how we orm andchange our goals, and how our goalsinuence, and are inuenced by others.

O course, the evolutionary perspectiveis only part o the story, and the RSAis interested in how goals change inlight o conscious deliberation andsel-awareness.

As we have argued in Steer, andTransforming Behaviour Change,the RSA believes that successulstrategies or enduring behaviourchange on issues o major importancewill require us to pay greater heedto the relevance o reexivity, withbehaviour viewed in terms o how

personal agency changes in lighto critical sel-awareness.40 Ourapproach is holistic in that we believein working with both controlled andautomatic aspects o our behaviour,and it is reexive in that it attemptsto generate a kind o recursive sel-awareness, in which knowledge aboutour own natures helps us to shapeour own environments, interactions

and behaviour in ways that arealigned with a truer understandingo ourselves and our relationship toothers.

This kind o perspective is dierenrom prevailing views because it requactive engagement with people, anda deliberative and iterative process odiscussing behaviour and attempting

change it accordingly. Such an approis labour intensive, and challengingto scale, but or problems o a certainnature, we believe it is the mostpromising approach.

Fuel Ecient Behaviour as aAdaptive Challenge

The most common leadership

ailure stems rom attempting to

apply technical solutions to adaptive

challenges.

Ron Heietz41

Harvard Proessor Ron Heietz makea useul distinction between technicaproblems and adaptive challenges in regard, which highlights the kinds obehaviour change we are most interein. Adaptive challenges require changin attitudes and perspectives and notjust behaviours, and they can only beaddressed by the people who havethem, which is why they are difcult identiy and easy to deny.

Understandably, policymakers pretechnical solutions, which use existinexpertise to target discrete measurabproblems, and although The approacoNudge is inormed by behaviourascience, it remains a technical solutioAdaptive challenges tend to be messiand require people to change their vio themselves in certain ways, which why policymakers tend not to engagwith them as much, and perhaps righso. Individuals paying a ew poundsextra or carbon osetting is a techni

solution to greenhouse gas emissionsis raising taxes on ying, while gettinpeople to y less or environmentalreasons is an adaptive challenge. In thcontext o this study, while the technproblem o uel efciency is lack oawareness o the range o measures tcan save uel, and how much impactthese measures can have, the adaptivchallenge is more proound. How


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do you turn inormation about uelefciency into the enduring dispositionto behave uel efciently?

This distinction between technicalsolutions and adaptive challenges isthereore important or this projectand climate change more generally.Inormation about what to do, and evenevidence about what we have to do areimportant, but they are only part othe solution. While technical problemscan be simplifed, instrumentalised,

and addressed with amiliar tools,rom a behavioural perspective, climatechange is also an adaptive challenge,requiring us to ace up to our complexrelationships to knowledge, requiringresh human reection, responsibilityand insight. This perspective explainsthe necessity or the preparatory workrequired to think about energy use andmisuse as an adaptive human challenge,

by gaining a deeper understanding o aparticular sub-set o motivated energyusers.

While most o Shells uel saving tipswere relevant to cab drivers, even thosetips that were described as commonsense were not always things the driversdid on a regular daily basis. This kindo action gap between knowing what todo and actually doing it highlights thatthe challenge o turning inormationon uel efciency into uel efcient

habits is adaptive in nature. Rather thanraming the challenge o uel efciencyin terms o a discrete problem that canbe directly solved, when viewed as anadaptive challenge, the task is to ace upto the strengths and limitations inherentin our own natures, and examinethe qualitative impact o a range oapproaches.

Technical Problems vs. Adaptive ChallengesFrom Eric Svaren, Groupsmith.com Adapted rom Ronald A. Heietz & Donald L. Laurie42

Technical Problems Adaptive Challenges

1. Easy to identiy 1. Difcult to identiy (easy to deny)

2. Oten lend themselves to quick and easy (cut-and-dried) solutions 2. Require changes in values, belies, roles,relationships, & approaches to work

3. Oten can be solved by an authority or expert 3. People with the problem do the work o solvingit

4. Require change in just one or a ew places; otencontained within organizational boundaries

4. Require change in numerous places; usuallycross organizational boundaries

5. People are generally receptive to technicalsolutions

5. People oten resist even acknowledgingadaptive challenges

6. Solutions can oten be implemented quicklyevenby edict

6. Solutions require experiments and newdiscoveries; they can take a long time toimplement and cannot be implemented by edict

EXAMPLES

- Take medication to lower blood pressure - Change l iestyle to eat healthily, get moreexercise and lower stress

- Implement electronic ordering and dispensing omedications in hospitals to reduce errors and druginteractions

- Encourage nurses and pharmacists to questionand even challenge illegible or dangerousprescriptions by physicians

- Increase penalt y or drunk driving - Raise public awareness o the dangers andeects o drunk driving, targeting teenagers inparticular

Adaptive challenges requirchanges in attitudes andperspectives and not justbehaviours, and they canonly be addressed by thepeople who have them,which is why they aredifcult to identiy andeasy to deny.


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processes that extend ar beyond a

solitary brain. 53

Social networks are typicallycomprised o groups o varying sizesrather than individuals, so connectingwith one group invariably meansconnecting with more than that groupalone, i only because each individual

member o a group typically belongs toother groups too. Membership o onegroup breeds membership o anotherin a multiplier eect that expands thegrowth and strength o the networkexponentially. This bridging or linkingcapital is the kind o connectivityrom which most people beneft. Thispoint matters or the current projectbecause individual drivers oer aone-to-many network, and drivers asa group represent a many-to-manynetwork; by targeting taxi drivers asa group, you potentially connect withseveral other groups. In light o thenew understanding o our connectivity,taxi drivers appear to be ideally placedto spread uel efcient behaviour, andwe attempted to address this in ourmethods (see below).54

Climate or cash: are wereinorcing the wrong kindso values?One o the main orms o inormationgiven about uel efciency, and the onethat took prominence in this project is

the inormation that tells you how muchmoney can be saved rom uel efciency.While the conventional wisdom on uel-efcient behaviour is that it representsa win-win scenario o saving peoplemoney, while helping to protect theenvironment, there is an importantperspective that challenges this view.

Financial incentives may work wellin promoting uel-efcient behaviour,and saving taxi drivers money, butit does not necessarily ollow thatfnancial incentives are the best

strategy or tackling climate changemore generally. Indeed, many haveargued that appealing to fnancialsel-interest reinorces certain valuese.g. consumerism, competitiveness,sel-interest, that are the root o theclimate problem. While one may saveuel in one domain o lie, or instancedriving, the overall impact is less clear,because the underlying consumerist

mindset is not challenged and mayeven be reinorced, while the moneysaved might be used to spend on uel-intensive products or services, orinstance long-haul ights.

Those who argue or this position,including WWF, Oxam, Friendso the Earth, The Campaign toProtect Rural England and the

Climate Outreach and InormationPartnership believe that since existingapproaches to the climate crisisappear to be ailing, we need to tryto work more directly to reinorcevalues that help us to address whatthey call bigger than sel problemslike climate change. This strategyinvolves recognising that while somevalues are complementary, othersare in direct opposition. With thisin mind, it could be that attempts tosave uel or purely selfsh fnancialreasons do not in act representenvironmental progress.55

We do not have a settled opinionon this issue at present, but eel itis an important one to be aware o.We tried to keep it in mind whilethinking o how to help the driversto help themselves save uel, orinstance by constantly remindingthem o the bigger picture on climatechange, and their social role inreminding passengers about savinguel. Moreover, our research into thelived world o the cabbies suggested

that fnancial incentives were armore likely to appeal than appealsto the environment. There is also anargument, outlined by values theoristPat Dade, that appealing to the valuesthat underpin material desire, andseeking to satisy them, may be animportant part o leading people tothe higher values involved in caringabout bigger-than-sel problems.However, this claim is contested andthe question o where values ft intopromoting environmental behaviour

currently eels unresolved.56

The headline fnding o thisstudy is that each cab driver savedan average o 1146 a year. This isclearly good economic news, but oneenvironmental question ollows, andit remains an open one: How likelyis it that this money will be used orgoods or activities that are less energyconsumptive than driving?

Our research into thelived world o the cabbiesuggested that fnancialincentives were armore likely to appealthan appeals to theenvironment.


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The understanding o cabbiespresented above helped us to ramethe strategy or helping them to

change their behaviour. The point wasnot or us to devise new levers to pullthat will directly solve the problemsthey have in saving uel (technicalsolutions) but rather to oer theseinsights to the cabbies to help themunderstand and address their ownparticular adaptive challenges.

We also hoped that these insightswould help us to communicatebehavioural principles to taxi drivers,while also allowing them to becomemore reexive about their own

natures and behaviours, and betterable to design physical changesto their habitats in ways that willhopeully help them save uel.

The above fndings helpedto inorm behaviour-changeinterventions with taxi drivers at theRSA Workshop on June 16th, wherewe were mindul o the ollowingissues:

Due to their recognition o thegap between knowing they should dosomething (e.g. drive smoothly) and

actually doing it, the ocus was noton inormation dissemination but onunderstanding that our brains can beviewed as two systems, like a pilot andan auto-pilot, and that the challengewith inormation is that it oten onlyreaches the pilot, but has no impact onthe auto-pilot. Given that most drivingbehaviour is automatic, the key is tofnd ways to shit habitual behaviours,which is why the workshop ocusedstrongly on the relationship betweendriving habits and taxi habitats.

In light o the strong awarenesso other drivers, and their explicitacknowledgment that this was aninuence on their behaviour, wealso sought to raise awareness osocial contagion rather than explicitinstruction. We thereore spent halo the time set aside or behaviouralinsight into a session on social normsand the power o social networks.

This device was partly to motivadrivers to overcome their atalistictendencies by showing that what th

did had the potential to inuence nonly their passengers but also thepeople their passengers inuenced ithat they may have great power toeect change.

We also elt it was very importato rame fnancial savings in tangibterms i.e. as a potential holiday, asthe payment o discrete costs, andso always tried to stage the value ouel efciency in these more tangibterms.

There is a big challenge but also

interesting opportunity to considerimaginative ways to tap into the civpride and ambassadorial role thatdrivers already latently eel. This wa urther reason to emphasise thepotential or drivers to be exemplarand spread uel efciency throughtheir good example.

Likewise, there is already a stronpublic service ethos, but we need


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Understanding the DriversIn order to gain some sense o the context o taxi driving behaviour,we commissioned research in ve areas that seemed most relevant:their worldview or personal outlook, their proessional environment, theircommunity, their behaviours and the physical habitat o the taxi. Thisresearch took the orm o accompanied journeys; a qualitative methodthat combines interviews with a participant at the beginning and end o ajourney, together with observations.

The ndings gained rom this research were used to plan adeliberative discussion group that examined research insights in more

detail, and allowed the drivers to discuss the ndings together. Thendings rom the accompanied journeys and discussion group werepublished in an interim report: Inside the Mind of a Cabbie.60

There were twelve primary ideas that inormed our approach. Weound that that cabbies are:

1. Working or their amiliesThe overriding motivation or personal success strongly emerged asthe desire to do ones very best or ones amily. All the drivers who havechildren are socially ambitious or them, with some drivers educatingtheir children privately, and others supporting their children throughuniversity.

Until you have kids, you dont really understand it. Youd do anything or them,youd give your lie or them. I told my son, dont worry, whatever you need, a liver,

a kidney, Ill give it to you.

2. In it or the MoneyWhile many o the drivers appeared to be socially engaged, andshowed a strong concern or treating their passengers airly, there wasa clear sense that the bottom line was nancial.

Were all in it to make money with responsibility o course.

3. FatalisticMany cabbies have come into the proession due to circumstancesbeyond their control (e.g. job loss) and there are many aspects o the jobbeyond the cabbies control (trac, passengers, road works) so theydevelop equanimity in the ace o shiting working conditions.

When you get one [low-paying are] ater another, ater another, and you knowyour days wiped out.

I take it a day at a time i it happens it happens.

The taxi god we call it.

4. PatientDrivers oten have to wait or hours beore picking up a are. Only abouta third o their working time is paid or, with the rest being waiting timeor dead mileage.

I you drive a taxi you have to be very, very patient; nice people, bad people,trac, accidents, everything you have to be very patient.

5. Independent

The eeling o autonomy is a major motivating actor, particularly beingable to work whenever they like, and not being told what to do.

Youre not looking over your shoulder, you know theres no one to tell youwhat to do.

6. AmbassadorialMost drivers expressed some ondness or allegiance or the place theywork, and were aware that they were oten the rst people that visitors totheir cities met. Many aspired to be ambassadors or their city.

I like to make sure my passengers have a comortable ride so they use me andmy rm again and have a good impression o Birmingham.

7. TribalThe drivers dened themselves as a group, principally in opposit ion toother driving proessionals , viewing private hire vehicles as rivals andbus drivers as aversive.

You nd that a lot o people go into private hire driving in a recession, which

dilutes the work or the hackney carriages as well.

8. MannerlyThere appear to be subtle codes o etiquette among taxi drivers, and ashared sense o what doing the right thing looked like on the road, withpassengers, and why this spirit o public service is integral to the job.

I treat people careully. I its a bad job, you just get on with it. The tip might be biggerat the other end. Were disappointed, but unortunately theres a hardcore o peoplewholl slam doors, throw cases in its not unny, cos its aecting our lives .

9. Deeply concerned about the cost o uelTaxi drivers are acutely aware o how much mileage they get or theiruel, and troubled by the act that the ratio o cost to prot is much lessavourable than it used to be:

I used to work o 10 and make my target, and since then Ive had to doublethat and work longer hours to get what I want back.

10. Waiting or more uel-ecient vehicles:While this project is about uel ecient driving rather than vehicles, itis noteworthy that all the drivers elt the main barrier to uel eciencywas the nature o the vehicles they had to work with:

Perhaps we should be attacking it rom the other end; lets get some uelecient vehicles as taxis instead o the dinosaurs we drive at the momentthat does 25 to 30mpg [miles per gallon] i youre lucky. I would like to be giventhe choice in Manchester, Im sure people in London may like to be given thechoice there are a lot more vehicles that are uel ecient

11. Ambivalent about climate changeThe drivers attitude to climate change developed in the course odiscussions. Initial ly it was described by most drivers as an abstractand contested issue o limited relevance to their daily lives, but mostdrivers did eel it was likely to be a major issue in the uture, and wereconcerned about the implications or their children.

I think people are generally quite selsh, and its got to be something that reallyaects them beore it drives it home.

Where were taxed massively or this climate change, youve got Chinalaughing all the way to the bank with 6% growth and the biggest economy othe world. Were doing our bit and Id like to see everybody do their bit.

12. Aware o uel-eciency measures, but unsure o

trade-osAs expert drivers, the cabbies were aware o many o the ways in whichthey might save uel, but they ocused almost exclusively on tips relating tospeed, starting and stopping, and oten ramed decisions on these issuesas trade-os in terms o other demands o the job:

We all know how to drive uel eciently, we all know how to get more miles tothe gallon, but unortunately its a compromise to get 0mpg or an extra job a day,and I would happily drive along the Broadway at 40mph so long as cabs didntovertake me at 60mph, so that Im 20 places back in the queue at the airpor t.


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Changing BehavioursWe collected the drivers into twogroups; all would undertake the ullbehaviour change programme, but tenwould also receive extra attention inthe orm o a Steer workshop. Eachgroup received a presentation o Shellsuel-saving advice rom Shell uelscientist Peter Adams, which covered

nineteen uel saving tips; rom drivingsmoothly to removing excess weightrom the vehicle. Each driver alsoreceived a one-on-one driving lessonrom AA driving instructors to gainexperience in putting such tips intopractice.

The Steer Approach andCo-creationThe ten drivers that received urtherattention attended a more advancedworkshop designed to help thecabbies reect on their own drivingbehaviour. During this workshop RSAsta presented some principles rombehavioural science to help the driversunderstand the inuences behindtheir driving behaviour. This includedone presentation explaining the basicsystems that guide how the brainworks, together with an understandingo how the drivers physical habitat(including the inside o the cab) canshape their habitual behaviour. Asecond presentation covered the eecto an individuals social network on

their behaviour, particularly looking athow behaviours can be contagious owing rom one person to the next.

Following both presentations, thedrivers worked together to developphysical interventions (or nudges)that could reinorce and supportbehaviour change inormed by thebehavioural principles presentedearlier. This element o co-designwas in sympathy with the emphasison empowering people to changetheir behaviour, rather than doing

behaviour change to them. Ratherthan top-down choice architectureco-designing interventions with thedrivers gave them more control overthe programmes direction.

Four ideas were generatedduring the workshop, which wereurther developed into a portolioo interventions that could supportuel-efcient behaviour change.

Each intervention was mailed tothose drivers that helped co-designthem throughout the course o thechallenge, with approximately oneweek between each.

The frst intervention aimed tomake uel consumption and therelationship between speed and uelmore salient among drivers. The

drivers vehicles had relatively basicdashboards, without an economygauge or tachometer and withew markings on the uel gaugeand speedometer. Stickers or thedashboard were developed to makethis interace more persuasive;converting the uel gauge romshowing either Full or Empty toindicating 60, 30 or 0, andadding red stickers to the speedometeat higher speeds.

In addition to the stickers, theimportance o smooth driving wasencouraged by introducing silk intothe drivers habitats, aiming to primethe idea o smooth driving. A blacksilk bag (intended or keeping changewas sent to each driver together withthe stickers (Figure 3).

The second intervention aimedto encourage discussion betweendriver and passenger in an attemptto leverage the cab drivers roleas spreader o inormation. Thisintervention took the orm o aguest book, drawing on the insight

uncovered during preparatory researcthat passengers were much like payinguests in the drivers vehicle, and thadrivers elt part o their position wasto be an ambassador or their city.

The guestbook (Figure 4) containeinormation on each driver and thechallenge, together with a numbero inormal tests that passengerscould use to assess their driversuel efciency. These included a linedrawing o the relevant city, withinstructions to trace the line as closely

as possible; i the vehicle is drivensmoothly, the line should be easier totrace.

The fnal intervention also aimed tencourage gradual acceleration, andgrew out o the drivers enthusiasmor vacuum gauges a simple way oassessing the strain on an engine bymonitoring its air intake, providingreal-time eedback, a little like an

It is entirely possible thatthe mere act the driversknew they were takingpart in a uel efciencystudy was the singlebiggest impact on theirdriving behaviour.


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economy gauge. While vacuum gauare simple additions, taxi regulationruled them out, so other ways oproviding eedback to reinorce andsupport smooth acceleration weresought. The idea o flling a capsulewith liquid that would be disturbedi the vehicle changed speed tooabruptly, such as a spirit-level devic

or snowglobe were suggested, butdismissed as being susceptible toleaking.

The fnal idea was to provideaudible eedback through a weightastened to the top o a vertical sprduring normal driving the weightwould remain vertical. However ispeed changed too quickly, the weigwould lean over, making contact wa metal ring and causing a buzzer tsound. The device was shaped to ftinto each vehicles built-in cuphold(Figure 5).

The CompetitionEighteen drivers took part in thecompetition, each aiming to reducetheir uel consumption simplythrough changing their behaviour.The competition took place in July2011, and acted as a ocal point othe whole programme, with extraattention paid to media profle durithis phase.

The competition measured eachdrivers level o behaviour change

beore, during and ater July. Thewinner was the most-improved drivwho received 500 o uel vouchersand a 2000 donation to a charity their choice as a prize.

Four uel-efcient behaviourswere taken into account, whichwere measured by monitoring theengine control unit in each driversvehicle. These behaviours were: haracceleration, harsh braking, over-revving and idling. Fuel economy walso recorded. The data was upload

rom each drivers vehicle via themobile phone network, allowingremote analysis and display o eachdrivers score on the Smarter CabDrivers website.

Data were continuously recordedrom mid-June (providing a twoweek baseline period) throughout

July (the month o the competitionuntil the middle o August (to show

Figure 3

Figure 5 Figure 6

Figure 4


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Research in the Context o aCampaign.The relationship between Shell and

RSA was open and constructive. Weretained ull editorial control o ourreports, and our input was sought andrespected at every stage o the process.As we have indicated above, whateverones view o the climate changeproblem, increasing uel efciency, withsome urgency, is an important part othe solution. The overall aim o activeengagement with the taxi drivers andraising awareness o the importance ouel efcient behaviour was thereoreas important to us as our attempts

to build an evidence base to justiyparticular policies, or a knowledge baseto inorm uture research.

When research is driven by thedesire to make an argument ora certain kind o social change,in this case an increase in uel-efcient behaviour, the purpose othe research does not have to bemerely to understand how that social

change might come about, but alsoto play an active part in bringing itabout. Engaged orms o research, in

which the participants are reexivelyengaged in the process, as knowledgebearers and knowledge-makers; asactors and agents, are as much aboutchanging behaviour as they are aboutmeasuring behaviour change. Wesaw the qualitative research with thedrivers, the pilot experiment, andthe awareness raising campaign aspart o an overall process to enrichour understanding o opportunitiesand challenges in the feld. For thesereasons, the research we conducted

was underpinned by an attitude oinquiry in which we continuallyreected on our purposes andassumptions, and the research procesitsel was emergent and responsive toevents in the real world.64

That said, we had hoped to test theeectiveness o our approach basedon steer and co-creation, and to learnhow particular kinds o people chang

RefectionsThe overall aim oactive engagement with

the taxi drivers andraising awareness o theimportance o uel efcientbehaviour was thereoreas important to us asour attempts to build anevidence base to justiyparticular policies, or aknowledge base to inormuture research.


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their behaviour in light o what theylearn about it. One consequence oour attitude o inquiry is that therole o behavioural insight, while stilla relevant part o the process, wasdiluted by the other interventions. Thedetails o these interventions emergedas the research process developed,and we were oten torn between

an idealistic view o what wouldgive the most meaningul data, andpragmatism or the sake o the widercampaign.

For instance, we hoped to contrasta relatively engaged approach tobehaviour change with the simpleprovision o inormation. In thisrespect, the AA driving instructionwas not part o the research design,and nor was the act that Shells uelefciency tips were given in person,with chances or questions. Based onthe relative excitement the cabbiesshowed towards knowledge abouttheir cars and their driving, comparedto their behaviour as such, our bestguess is that these two interventionshad much more impact on the driversthan our workshop on behaviour.

An orthodox view o researchwould say such interventions shouldhave been prevented, and although wewere aware that such developmentscomplicated the argument we weretrying to develop, we were not inclinedto object because the research was

taking place alongside this widerprocess o engagement and awarenessraising. Moreover, in the context o acompetition between regions, wherelocal press make careul inquiriesabout the process, and prizes areat stake, it was important to guardagainst the claim that some driverswere receiving preerential treatment.

While we think a pragmaticapproach to research was justifedin this context, we believe there isdefnitely scope or a more rigorous

study to test our ideas in a moretargeted way. In this respect we hopeto revisit the RSAs original researchdesign or this project, which ocussedon a larger sample o drivers in asingle geographic area. Such a studywould have made it easier to controlor variables, and to be more confdento the potential efcacy o dierentkinds o interventions. By increasing

the sample size, removing thecompetitive and inter-regional elemento the process, conducting deeperethnographic research, and controllingbetween groups more careully, wecould learn more about the impact oour steer and co-creation workshops.On the other hand, we probablywould not have raised awareness o

uel efcient driving to the extent thatwe achieved, in the national press andin several dierent regions across thecountry.

As a result o the real worlddevelopments that emerged, thebehavioural interventions becameprogressively diluted in their relevance,making it harder or us to gaugetheir efcacy. However, the role othink tank research is typically todemonstrate the relevance o a seto ideas, and problem-fnd in waysthat lead to new orms o researchor policy developments. In thisrespect, we were glad to be part oa ascinating process, and hope theproposals that resulted rom it are ovalue.


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1. Make habitual behaviourthe ocus o interventions orchange

Making habitual behaviour the ocuso behaviour change interventionsresonated strongly with thedrivers, who recognised the actiongaps between knowing what to doand actually doing it. Inormation isimportant, but not enough, and thosecurrently willing to give inormationabout uel efciency should considerthe behavioural challenges o actingon that inormation. I drivers aresupported in converting new learninginto long-term habits, efciency gains

can be increased.So i Shell, or a car manuacturer,

or the local council, currently giveinormation on how to save uel,they can improve the eectivenesso doing so i they also give adviceabout how to make such behaviourshabitual. For instance, uel efciencytips could include advice about howto turn such behaviours into habits

e.g. strive to do it or at least 66days the approximate amount otime it takes to perorm a new task

without thinking - and you will fndit begins to eel automatic, or workwith mental accounting, by remindinyoursel how exactly the money savethrough these behaviours will beused.65

2. Make uel eciency apass/ail criterion on thedriving testA urther implication o the emphasison habit is making uel efciencya more prominent part o driving

lessons and a more signifcant parto the driving test. In this respect wewould go beyond the DVLAs existingcommitment to give eedback onuel efciency at the end o practicaltests and support the Conederationor British Industrys call or drivingefciently to become a pass/ail issue.Given the importance o uel efciencoutlined above, and the challenge o

ProposalsI drivers are supportedin converting new learning

into long-term habits,efciency gains can beincreased


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Documents

Cabbies, Costs and Climate Change