The project investigates the effect of providing information and making costs associated with car ownership and use more salient. We'll study the impact of promptly informing drivers about road toll prices over time and providing personalized information about carsharing as an alternative to car ownership. We will run randomized control trials (RCTs) in collaboration with public agencies and businesses to provide causal results on individual behaviour and attitudes. Our goal is to study to what extent lack of information and attention is a barrier to behaviour change, and the role of relatively cheap measures, such as providing information, for reducing car ownership and use.
Urban transport is at a crossroads. Private cars offer convenience but come with high costs: greenhouse gas emissions, congestion, air pollution, and the inefficient use of public space. While technological solutions like electric vehicles help reduce emissions, they do little to address congestion and the use of public space.
Behavioural research shows that people often underestimate the real cost of owning a car—and that these costs are rarely visible when decisions are made. Lack of information and limited attention (saliency) may be a major barrier to more sustainable choices.
Project Period: 2025–2028
Project structure
SALIENT is structured in five work packages (WPs):
- WP1: Co-design of communication tools. A team of economists, psychologists, designers and communication experts will further develop an innovative, user-friendly carsharing calculator tailored to Bergen. The tool compares the real cost of car ownership with carsharing alternatives. A previous version of the calculator was developed in the project Carnudge, and can be found here: www.eiedele.no
- WP2: Field experiment in Bergen. A randomized controlled trial will test whether information about cost of owning a car and carsharing can influence carsharing uptake and car ownership. The project aims at replicating an earlier trial in Oslo, which lead to increased carsharing membership by 15%. Read the published article here.
- WP3: Toll cost saliency experiment. In Oslo, another randomized experiment will evaluate whether information about toll costs impact the number of toll passings and changes people’s views on road tolls.
- WP4: Quasi-experiment with carsharing users. We will study whether making toll costs more visible in carsharing bills changes user behaviour.
- WP5: Policy implementation and scaling. This final work package will synthesize the results, explore how they can be scaled, and support policy design and governance discussions.
Partners
SALIENT is led by the Institute of Transport Economics (TØI) and carried out in collaboration with:
- Frisch Centre
- The City of Bergen
- Autosync
- Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA)
- InfoDesignLab
- Carsharing companies: Bilkollektivet, Getaround, Dele
The project is funded by the Research Council of Norway (352926).
Informasjon på norsk | Information in English
