Designing a community engagement strategy for Limerick Smarter travel using focus groups and precedent studies

This research aims to create a rational basis for designing and implementing a plan for Limerick Smarter Travel. This plan will pay particular attention to community engagement. This research establishes a rationale for a community engagement strategy. Precedent studies also provide direct guidance for this rationale. The objective of the plan is to develop a local culture of Smarter Travel in Limerick communities using best international practice, and thereby achieving behavioural change in travel mode choice. This research looks at hard physical infrastructure and soft community based interventions, to promote lasting travel behaviour change in five pilot zones in Limerick. The literature on Smarter Travel is reviewed. Results from a comprehensive study of six international exemplar Smarter Travel Cities is reported. Current travel modes, using census data, and traveller’s mode choice criteria, using focus groups, in Limerick City are investigated and reported. However, census data only provides information on trips to work, school, and college. Focus groups were employed to investigate beliefs, attitudes, and decision criteria relating to existing travel choices in Limerick and to Smarter Travel modes. The analysis provides a rationale to allow proposals for an appropriate community engagement strategy to be formulated. Quantitative census data demonstrates significant local variation in travel behaviour in the five pilot zones. This same data allows spatial subdivision and grouping according to local travel behaviour. Qualitative focus group data show the factors motivating mode choice also vary significantly. From a travel standpoint target groups should be characterised by socio-economic, age or other status. Therefore, influencing peoples travel behaviour and encouraging change requires not just the implementation of best practice measures, but must be preceded by a nuanced spatial and behavioural research program, incorporating community engagement. Thus a “one size fits all” Smarter Travel plan would not work.