Feasibility of reward scenarios in the province of Limburg; An assessment based on literature. The Regional Road Traffic Safety Authority of Limburg asked SWOV to assess five scenarios for rewarding traffic behaviour on their feasibility. This involved a qualitative content-wise and statistical assessment of the likelihood of success of the following five scenarios: ? Generic rewarding: everyone in the province of Limburg receives a reward or has a chance of receiving a reward if he/she has not been fined. ? Location related rewarding: at one or more locations it is determined whether a passing road user shows desirable behaviour and if so, is rewarded. ? District-related rewarding with lottery: road users who are determined to display good traffic behaviour within a project district receive a lottery ticket lot which offers a chance of winning a price. ? District-related rewarding with collective reward: if good traffic behaviour is determined in a project district, the entire district is rewarded with a collective price. ? District-related rewarding with social media: inhabitants of a district can pay each other compliments when good behaviour is observed by making use of social media like for instance Twitter or Facebook. The five scenarios were scored on a number of criteria according to theoretical principles of effective rewarding. These scores were motivated for each scenario by looking at the pros and cons. According to purely theoretical criteria all scenarios could work well and be effective. However, it is impossible to say beforehand which of the scenarios will be most effective, because the effectiveness is to a large extent determined by how a scenario is put into practice. In addition to the theoretical criteria, the following criteria may make the choice of a scenario easier: In practice, small scale reward interventions are generally more practicable than large scale interventions. This would make a case against the large scale, generic scenario. It is very hard to check thoroughly whether road users who receive a reward have in fact not committed any traffic offences within the project district or outside it. If this is not considered to be an important objection, this makes a case for a scenario that uses collective rewarding. In such a scenario no rewards are given to individual road users (who may not deserve the reward). Feedback by social media is fast and may be appealing ('fun') for specific target groups (youths rather than older road users). However, the subject and the way the 'free', social media are used are difficult to direct and control. This is about, for instance, subjective assessments of what ‘good’ traffic behaviour precisely is, and about paying compliments and about not making negative remarks. If the possibility of checking is of the greatest importance, this suggests being reluctant in the use of social media.
Samenvatting