‘Home-movers more likely to embrace the eco-commute’

HOME-MOVERS are more likely to be green commuters, a study by Cardiff University has found.

The study of 18,000 UK residents has found that people who have just moved house are significantly less likely to travel to work by car, opting for a greener mode of transport instead.

The researchers believe the change in behaviour linked to moving house means there is a “window of opportunity” for policymakers to promote greener travel.

The change was spotted during the first six months of a person living in a new house, after which they were shown to lapse into old habits and more likely to start using a car to commute again.

Writing in the journal PLoS One, the team said they believe this initial change in attitude is partly down to the large upheaval associated with moving house, forcing people to re-consider their existing habits.

Dr Gregory Thomas, from the university’s School of Architecture, said: “Moving home is often a large change in people’s lives where habits and old routines are broken.

“We’ve shown that during this time a large proportion of residents in the UK will reconsider the way in which they travel to work.”

The researchers arrived at their findings by analysing the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Understanding Society dataset – a study of 40,000 households in the UK measuring attitudes and behaviour over time.

Researchers say the survey is the largest of its kind in the world and provides a broad understanding of how 21stcentury life in the UK is changing.

The results showed that environmental attitudes also played a big part in people’s decision to try alternative ways of getting to work when they move house.

“People with greener attitudes who hadn’t lived at their current home for long were far less likely to commute by car than those with weaker environmental attitudes.

“But even though greener attitudes predicted lower car use immediately after moving, as time spent living in the same location increased we find that people’s green attitudes became less and less predictive of their travel mode choice,” said Dr Thomas.

Professor Wouter Poortinga, also from the School of Architecture, added: “Natural breaks in behaviour, such as moving home, offer an excellent opportunity where people may be more receptive to new information or support, which could encourage them to maintain healthy and sustainable travel mode choices.

“Policy-makers could use this break to deliver key information at a time when people are ready to engage with a new behaviour.”

Dr Thomas suggested local government could work with estate agents to encourage people to maintain healthier travelling habits.

The academic said they did not analyse which types of transport home-movers switched to.