The Green Travel Plan approach – designing for sustainable and behavioral travel habits

The Green Travel Plans approach is a pilot study project funded by Formas' Climate Neutral Cities with a focus on social sustainability 2024-2025 program where Luleå University of Technology together with Östersund Municipality explores how theories and methods of behavioral and service design can contribute to more sustainable and healthy travel habits.

The project is based on a simple insight: to create real change, we need to understand people's everyday lives, not just plan for them at the system level.

The transport sector accounts for a large share of Sweden's emissions, while sedentary lifestyles have a negative impact on public health. Active commuting habits, such as walking and cycling, are therefore important both for the climate and for people's well-being. Despite this, planning is often dominated by traditional tools such as transport strategies, infrastructure investments, campaigns and information efforts. However, research shows that travel habits are shaped by many more factors than infrastructure, such as social norms, perceived safety, habits, time constraints and perceived barriers that influence our everyday choices.

The project combines behavioral design and service design with user insights to identify which everyday situations hinder or enable sustainable choices. The project works with small-scale tests, prototypes and practical experiments that allow solutions to be tested in real-life environments before being scaled up. An important part of the project is to highlight conditions that are often forgotten in the national mobility debate: in many small towns (so-called sparsely populated areas), a large proportion of residents have less than 15 minutes cycling distance to work (Älmhult 78%; Hällefors 76%; Ånge 70%; Sveg 84%; Strömsund 84%; Övertorneå 79%; Arvidsjaur 81%). This means that many rural residents could already travel sustainably in everyday life, often without major investments. However, this requires that choices feel safe, easy and possible, and that local solutions are adapted to different people's life situations, winter commuting, drop-off and pick-up or limited public transport.

The project shows that the transition does not have to wait for major infrastructure investments. By using design to understand behaviors, create relevant services and shape supportive environments, more municipalities can start creating change today. The Green Travel Plan approach is therefore as much about people as mobility and about giving more people the opportunity to contribute to the green transition in a way that works in their everyday lives.