An investigation into the socio-economic, psychological and situational determinants for changing travel behavior of the NHS hospital staff in the context of travel plans

The negative externalities of high rates of car use associated with the NHS have been a major policy concern. In this context, every healthcare authority was required to implement a travel plan by December 2010 by the Strategic Health Authority to reduce the use of cars and encourage the use of alternative modes of transport. Evidence suggests that although the take-up of travel plans is increasing across the NHS designing travel plan measures to change the travel behaviour of the hospital staff remains a major challenge among the practitioners.

The effectiveness of travel plan measures to secure the targeted outcome is attributed to the methods used to address the determinants for changing travel behaviour whilst designing travel plan measures and the successful adoption of innovative strategies in the given context. The significance of theory-driven interventions in changing commuters’ travel behaviour has been recognised in recent years. However, the use of interventions based on empirically supported theories to reduce the use of cars and promote walking has been limited in practice. There is also a lack of empirical and theoretical studies with a focus to changing travel behaviour of hospital staff. In the given context, this research aims at investigating the key socio-economic, psychological and situational determinants for changing travel behaviour of the NHS hospital staff in the context of travel plans.