PsyKoMobil - Strategies for overcoming psychological barriers to collaborative mobility

The project investigates psychological barriers to the shared use of transportation among private individuals. PsyKoMobil aims to develop strategies to reduce psychological barriers to collaborative mobility. With the help of existing empirical findings on collaborative mobility from psychological, social and transport science perspectives and a comprehensive quantitative survey study in the Bottrop case region, insights into the psychological prerequisites for collaborative mobility are to be generated.

Collaborative forms of mobility offer great potential for integrated and climate-friendly mobility, because by increasing the occupancy rate of cars in particular, existing traffic capacities can be used more optimally and at the same time traffic-related environmental pollution can be reduced. Since there are hardly any technological and organizational barriers to collaborative mobility, its low prevalence is therefore primarily due to psychological barriers. PsykoMobil aims to develop strategies to reduce these psychological barriers. To this end, the empirical findings on collaborative mobility from psychological, social and transport science perspectives will first be brought together and then applied to two case regions in the city of Bottrop. To this end, strategies for overcoming the psychological barriers to collaborative mobility will be planned as models and implemented as examples. Measures for the social activation of residents in the two case regions are of particular importance here. The experience gained there will be evaluated with regard to the traffic, environmental and psychosocial effects and finally transferred into new research questions and designs together with the experts from the accompanying PsykoMobil forum on collaborative mobility.

Project goals
PsykoMobil aims to create the first opportunity for an analysis of collaborative mobility in which psychological and transportation science influencing factors are considered in an integrative manner. The overarching aim of this analysis is to derive strategies for promoting collaborative mobility and to assess the associated sustainability potential on an ecological and social level.

PsyKoMobil pursues three overarching research objectives:

• Synthesis of empirical findings on collaborative mobility from a transport, spatial, social science and psychological perspective
• Socio-spatial contextualization of collaborative mobility in the two case regions within the Innovation City Ruhr area Bottrop
• Identification of new questions and research designs on collaborative mobility.