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Behavioural interventions for Alert Levels 2 & 1
Behavioural interventions for Alert Levels 1 & 2
Table below summarises the prioritised interventions to consider when managing challenges at Alert Level 2 and 1. In section VII the interventions and suggested actions are described in more depth including execution details. The prioritisation has been allocated based on expected ease, cost and impact but will require internal validation.
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Covid-19 challenge
REDUCING AMBIGUITY AND UNCERTAINTY
PREPARING FOR LOST PT COMMUTER HABITS
PROTECTING COMMUNITY GROUPS ACROSS AUCKLAND Intervention title Suggested action Priority to be validated internally
Install physical prompts
Install physical prompts Floor markings on the ground of the bus, train, or in stations to depict where passengers should stand. Bus driver partition to protect drivers.
Leverage Travelwise Choices relationships
Encourage sustainable travel
Identify and target new customer segments Leverage Travelwise Choices relationships
Identify and target new customer segments Gamify sustainable transport options
Travelwise Choices working from home campaign Support commitment to active modes
Leverage Travelwise Choices relationships Provide organisations and their employees key tips for new working arrangements and transport options. Highlight the improvements on the environment with visuals to highlight the improvements to New Zealand’s pollution levels. Track customer sentiment. Distribute fortnightly customer surveys, cut by location and demographics Provide commitment plans for employees of organisations returning to work to plan their trip in advance. AT mobile nudge asking one or two poll questions to track confidence and safety using PT. Encourage uptake of Auckland Council’s FutureFit app to encourage reducing carbon footprints. Reinvigorate the Travelwise Choices Working From Home campaign
Encourage people to set-up effective active mode goal-setting. Identifying their objectives, why they’re important, and any barriers. Increase the size of bike paths or closing roads to cars to provide more space for walking and biking.
Community Transport Schools Campaign Community Transport Schools Campaign
Make things easy for those with limited resources Provide guidance about staying safe while coming back to school. Get children excited about returning to their walking habits by creating fun walking / cycling competitions. Remove/reduce penalties for the financially vulnerable. High priority
Medium priority
Quick win
Quick win
High priority
High priority
Medium priority
Medium priority
Medium priority
Medium priority
Medium priority
High priority
Medium priority
Medium priority
TACKLING THE CHALLENGE Reducing ambiguity and uncertainty to encourage COVID-19 adherence
Install physical prompts
As we move down the levels, it’s likely that rules such as ‘back door of the bus only’ will be relaxed and new onboard behaviours required. Therefore, prepare any necessary assets required to manage new expectations in the lower level alert levels such as where to stand when queuing.
HOW THIS COULD WORK
Floor markings. Clear markers on the ground of the bus and train, or in stations as to where you can stand. Similar examples have been used to encourage continued physical distancing in Europe.10
Bus driver partition. Investigate opportunities to protect drivers and provide signal signs of safety by providing driver partitions.
TACKLING THE CHALLENGE Preparing for lost public transport commuter habits
Leverage Travelwise Choices relationships
When preparing for potential shifts in customer behaviour, it’s useful to consider which channels people are most likely to engage with. In most cases, people will actively engage or listen to their employer. To utilise this channel, re-engage with the businesses that AT has an existing relationship with through the Travelwise Choices team. Create messaging or collateral that they can share with their organisations, about planning for travel coming back from COVID-19.
HOW THIS COULD WORK
Commitment plans. Provide a simple tool for employees of organisations returning to work that will enable them to plan their trip in advance.
Ask them to share their plan with a friend.
COVID-19 transport considerations. Provide key considerations and tips for new working arrangements and transport options.
Trigger for the Travelwise programme. This could be a trigger moment to encourage conversations with the team, and joining-up to the programme.
Support active modes. Active modes may be encouraged by integrating routes such as cycleways into journey planners, increasing the size of bike paths or closing roads to cars to provide more space for walking and biking, as has been seen in the USA. 12
Alternative services. Providing alternative services such as additional bike racks throughout town may encourage people to consider active modes.
Encourage sustainable travel
The global reductions in transportation and emissions have had numerous positive impacts on the environment in recent weeks. This, coupled with a realisation of the implications of a global crisis, may facilitate renewed efforts towards environmental sustainability 13 and an increased focus on the importance of a shift from carbonemitting transport to near carbon-zero active modes.
Highlight the momentum gained through COVID-19 toward carbon emission reductions, and the opportunity for each individual to be part of continued progress. Invigorate the audience about this positive and unintended consequence during this difficult time.
There’s no denying that it can be difficult to motivate through sustainability messaging. Climate change can still feel abstract and far-away from everyday life for most. But there’s a lot of lessons we can learn through behavioural science, with researchers across the world testing what works and what doesn’t.
For example, one study in British Columbia highlighted the importance of personalisation and location to encourage action for climate change. Messages involving the effects of climate change locally were the most effective, due to strong attachments to the location. Making behaviours feel personally relevant to people will have a significant impact on determining whether or not a person is likely to act. 14
HOW THIS COULD WORK
A call to action. Reinvigorate Kiwis by highlighting the improvements on the environment such as the improvements to air pollution during the recent pandemic “Let’s not go back to pre-COVID-19 levels!”
Visual storytelling. Using visuals to highlight the improvements to New Zealand’s pollution levels particularly around Auckland may make climate change feel like a personal issue for Kiwis to act on, Making the message clear, simple and personalised will be more compelling and impactful. Gamification and calculators to nudge sustainable transport options
We are innately driven by rewards and feedback about our actions. Gamification utilises this insight, giving us a feeling of gaining ‘points’ and being compared to our peers through competition. Gamification has been successfully used to encourage commitment to sustainable behaviours, and therefore could be useful when preparing to encourage continued commitment to active modes post-COVID-19. One example of these platforms locally is Auckland Council’s FutureFit app which encourages people to commit to sustainability goals and track them.
Auckland Council’s FutureFit interface 3.28T
my carbon saved this week 3.30T
my carbon saved so far
10
9.8T
5.7T
54%
5 6.0T 5.7T
MY CARBON FOOTPRINT 9T AT THE START
FUTURE FITNESS ACTIONS - WEEKLY PROGRESS
0
NZ ME
WORLD
MY PARKING FUTUREFIT TARGET 5.3T BY 2025
Transport 1.5T Power 0.6T Food 2.1T Living 1.5T
Calculators can also be used to make the impact of our choices feel real. By clearly calculating the impact of our decisions, we can see the potential longer-term effects. For example, people may be surprised by how much time and money they may save by taking the train, bus or ferry for their commute to work. AT’s Commuter Calculator highlights the cost of commuting using a private car compared with PT options.
HOW THIS COULD WORK
Encourage uptake of Auckland Council’s
FutureFit app. This app, developed by the Council, gives you a snapshot of your carbon footprint.
People can choose sustainable challenges, and track and share progress. One of the actions is focused on tacking how your transport behaviours impact your carbon contribution.
Use of AT’s Commuter Calculator. Use this tool to compare the cost of private car and PT for daily commuting. Further enhancements could be made on this tool, to include carbon emission tracking regular feedback, a points system and social sharing.
TACKLING THE CHALLENGE Planning for new customer segments and behaviours
Identify and target new customer segments
To ensure you are nudging the right people with the right messaging, it’s advisable to identify and track emerging and established customer segments. Continue to monitor sentiment towards PT as we move through the transition phases, and act to understand the widespread intentions around postCOVID-19 containment transport behaviours. It could be good timing to start preparing customer sentiment and behaviour surveys, as well as identifying available data to feed into behavioural models.
HOW THIS COULD WORK
Track customer sentiment. Distribute fortnightly customer surveys, cut by location and demographics, to answer key questions relating to sentiment and behavioural intentions.
Mobile pulse survey. AT mobile nudge asking one or two poll questions to track confidence and safety using PT. Reinvigorate the Travelwise Choices Working From Home campaign
The Travelwise Choices programme provides a range of offers to businesses, including a Travel Plan, free HOP card trials for employees and more. One element of the programme which has been on-hold is a campaign to encourage people to work from home. It could be good timing to re-establish this programme with a view to capture those who’ve developed the new habit.
The concept of experiential learning tells us that people are much more likely to stick to habits once they’ve had a chance to experience them. Therefore, people being forced to figure out their home office, utilise new video conferencing platforms, and experience new norms around working from the office–will all lead to a likely increase in people being comfortable and continuing to working from home even once lockdown is over. Consider integrating the programme with other tools such as FutureFit or the Commuter Calculator to encourage the uptake of sustainable transport options.
HOW THIS COULD WORK
Ask customers about their working habits.
Reverse how people typically consider working from home, and focus instead on asking people to identify which days they’ll be working from the office. For example “What’s your office day?”
Include gamification. Could include
Auckland Council’s Futurefit, or an enhanced Commuter Calculator (with gamification) as part of the campaign.
Support commitment to active modes
Mental contrasting with implementation intentions is a planning strategy that has been shown to help people achieve goals in numerous different contexts, from dieting to reducing domestic violence. It involves setting your objectives and why they’re important to you (or those you care about), with identification of barriers and ‘if… then...’ plans for how to overcome them.
The most well-known application of this technique is known as WOOP, which stands for: Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan. Research shows that this technique increases a person’s chances of overcoming any obstacle, not just the barrier they identified. For example, when encouraging people to stick to their cycling habits, British Cycling used the WOOP technique that led to a 32% increase in sustained cycling habits (Figure 3).15 In this example, people were asked to share their cycling goals, to identify what might stop them from achieving those goals and to consider achievable ways for overcoming those obstacles.
HOW THIS COULD WORK
Create a WOOP guide to support active modes.
Encourage people to retain the healthy habits they developed during COVID-19 containment, such as walking or cycling. Identify relevant channels to promote the guide, such as working with local walking or cycling non-profit organisations.
British Cycle WOOP guide. The chart helps users to identify key goals, assess why they’re important, recognise barriers and obstacles to achieving them, and plan ways to stick to them.
Community Transport Schools Campaign
As schools will be reopened at Alert Level 2, the Community Transport team could proactively prepare guidance about the challenges that schools and parents will face regarding the use of PT.
With some physical distancing still required at Level 2, it will be necessary for schools to manage dropoff and pickup areas to reduce the likely congestion at peak times. This will be exacerbated by a proportion of parents reverting to driving as opposed to encouraging sustainable transport options. The Community Transport team could provide guidance for how to manage this, ideas for staggering dropoff and pickup times, and avoiding queues and groups.
Schools need to support the community of children, teachers and parents that walk or cycle to school. To help encourage people to restore their old active habits (or start new ones) create some excitement or a competition with prizes. Examples of this include the WOW (Walk or Wheel) Passport Challenge run by Greater Wellington. 16 Schools encourage children to take part, and each child has their passport stamped when they’ve walked to schools. If planning on executing a programme such as this, we’d recommend taking a behavioural approach to ensure you can test the true impact and success of the initiative.
HOW THIS COULD WORK
Guidance. Provide guidance about staying safe while coming back to school, and preparing schools to avoid queues or groups in dropoff and pickup zones
Encouraging active modes. Continuing to reach out to schools and encouraging active modes post-COVID-19 will help inspire younger generations of Aucklanders to get active.
Creative competitions. Get children excited about returning to their active habits by creating fun walking or cycling competitions. Make things easy for those with limited resources
People experiencing financial difficulties may find it infeasible to tie up money by loading it onto a HOP card, or even to navigate this process. ‘Scarcity’ describes the cognitive burden of being in financial hardship. 17 With the economic impact of COVID-19 likely to disproportionately affect those who are least well-off, AT should put measures in place to support those most affected.
HOW THIS COULD WORK
Remove barriers to AT services. Scarcity means that complexity can disproportionately affect those in financial hardship. Removing barriers–for example by making HOP cards easier to access or offering alternative ways for people who don’t have internet access to keep up to date with changing AT services–should have a significant impact on the uptake of services.
Remove or reduce penalties for the financially vulnerable. Tying up money on HOP cards, or paying expensive cash fares is unrealistic for people in real hardship. AT should explore ways to enable people to use PT when financially constrained.
