There are a number of pilot initiatives which the Irish Energy Centre plan to undertake this year. The majority of actions in this area have been aimed at altering motorist behaviour with the publication and dissemination of the Motoring Tips Wheel and Irish Energy Centre support of national PR campaigns such as Walk to Work Day and Give Your Car a Holiday Day.
Since transport is an important consumer of energy in Ireland, accounting for 30% of Ireland’s total final energy consumption and therefore an obvious area to consider for energy savings.
The Irish Energy Centre’s transport campaign started in earnest during Energy Awareness Week with Give Your Car a Holiday Day with the Pat Kenny Show. There were 2 main messages in this promotion:
This was the Centre’s first step in actively engaging the public in a behavioural change campaign in the area of transport. As with many first time initiatives, the main objective was to draw attention to the campaign. In this respect the campaign has been very effective, with a large percentage of our target audience (ABC1) single occupancy car users being aware that the campaign was going ahead.
There were a number of objectives achieved from this year’s campaign, which form part of a longer term strategy in this area:
This year’s Give Your Car a Holiday Day focused on attracting the car user’s attention and interest with the intention to building the impact of the future campaign to mobilise the desire to change their behaviour and take the appropriate action of using an alternative means of transport.
Much is already being done in Dublin and elsewhere in Ireland, to address the problem of traffic congestion on our streets. However, when you consider statistics indicating that there were 160,000 private car trips on the roads of Dublin during the morning peak in the Winter of 1996, it is apparent to all of us that there is much left to be done. More worrying is the fact that this figure is set to increase to 175,000 during this winter. Everyone has experienced that traffic congestion is worsening, journey times have almost doubled in the last 5 years. Reasons why the situation is getting worse include an increase in the rate of car ownership due to the economic boom. It is predicted that by 2006, there will be an estimated 468,000 car owners in Dublin and surrounds. Clearly, the issue of traffic congestion is therefore very much in the hands of the urban traveller, how he makes his choice of transport option and what we as colleagues in this area can do to sufficiently influence and change this behaviour to save energy, ease the congestion and protect the environment.
The objective of this seminar was to stimulate discussion of the combined issues of traffic congestion and transport energy conservation, as they relate to the individual traveller. The Centre wishes to initiate a process in Ireland aimed at highlighting the issues of energy consumption and emissions in urban transport. This seminar also brought together those of us interested in developing strategies for easing urban traffic, at the level of the individual traveller. Issues that were discussed included:
Conference Papers are available from Irish Energy Centre.
Joanne Geary
Irish Energy Centre, Glasnevin, Dublin 9, Ireland
Ph: +353-1-836.9080
Fax: +353-1-837.2848
e-mail: gearyj@irish-energy.ie