During September 2000 a wave of popular unrest over the price of petrol gripped several European countries. In the UK, these protests led to oil refineries being blockaded resulting in severe fuel shortages, which in turn forced many drivers to restrict their car use and make adaptations in their travel behaviour. These changes in behaviour were potentially of a nature and scale not normally associated with conventional transport policy interventions. The incidence of these `coerced responses' provided a unique opportunity to study the mechanisms of adaptation involved in significant reductions in car use and to gain insight into the consequences of these adaptations for the individuals concerned, both in the short and longer term. The aim of this paper is to present the results of a study carried out to investigate the nature of these responses and to discuss the implications of the findings for travel demand management and travel reduction policies. The study was carried out shortly after the end of the UK fuel crisis and involved a combination of two methodologies. First, three group discussions were undertaken in two urban and one rural area in the UK to investigate the qualitative impact of the fuel shortage on individuals' travel patterns and activity participation and to gain insight into the mechanisms of behavioural adaptation, including the factors that act as inhibitors of adaptation. These group discussions were then followed up in the second stage with a nationally representative telephone survey that collected quantitative information on the severity of the impact of fuel shortages on different activities and travel purposes and the incidence of different form of behavioural response. The paper is organised as follows. The first section describes the background to the study and briefly reviews the existing literature on the nature of behavioural responses manifest in 'coercive' situations e.g., in instances of major transport system failures or natural disasters. The second section then summarises the key features of the study methodology and presents summary data on the characteristics of the qualitative and quantitative samples. The third section presents the key descriptive findings from the qualitative and quantitative data. Tentative findings available at this stage suggest that the impact of the September 2000 fuel crisis was perhaps neither as extensive nor intensive as media reports at the time suggested, but that longer periods of uncertainty regarding fuel supplies would indeed have profound effects upon travel patterns, especially commuting, travel in the course of work and shopping. The results also indicate that travellers would be likely to invoke a wide range of behavioural responses, including both those that are well-researched (such as mode and destination switching) and, significantly, those that are not (such as trip chain re-scheduling and modifications to driving style). Both impacts and responses differ significantly in urban and rural areas. The final section explores the policy implications of these findings and identifies future research and policy needs.
Samenvatting