Smarter Cab Drivers

This project features a rare study of taxi drivers in their working habitats, and presents wider lessons about the challenges of efficient fuel use in the context of rising energy prices and climate change. However you conceive the climate problem, efficiency is an important part of the solution.

Petrol prices have risen by 32 percent since 2009. While debates about how to deal with rising energy costs through fiscal levers and regulation will continue, this report highlights the role behaviour change can play in reducing costs.

To better understand this kind of engaged approach to behaviour change, the RSA sought to help taxi drivers turn helpful information about fuel efficient behaviour into enduring dispositions. This exploratory study is part of RSA's more ambitious attempt to understand how to make positive behaviour habitual, performed without conscious thought, and contagious, through which positive behaviour spreads through social diffusion between individuals and groups.

Shell's fuel save tips comprise a range of pieces of advice, from  choice of oil, driving speed, car weight, personal comfort and journey planning. We chose to focus on the challenges of implementing these tips with Hackney Carriage drivers due to their professional interest in reducing the costs of driving, their driving expertise, and because of their potential capacity to influence a large number of passengers from a range of backgrounds.

The attempts to begin to make fuel efficient behaviour habitual and contagious included:

  • An incentive to participate and win in a national competition
  • Continual comparative online feedback
  • Specialist advice on fuel efficient driving in real time contexts
  • Informed reinforcement of driving and car maintenance advice

We also hosted a deliberative workshop with cabbies, where we discussed some relevant findings from behavioural science to help them address the ‘action gap’ between knowing what to do and actually doing it, and to become more aware of their potential influence on other drivers. During this event, we worked with the cabbies to co-design four modifications to the taxi 'habitat':

  • A silk money bag to prime the idea of smooth driving
  • Dashboard stickers to make feedback more immediately relevant
  • A passenger journal designed to stimulate discussion on fuel efficiency
  • A spring device giving audio feedback on harsh braking and acceleration

While the sample size (of twenty) was too small to draw conclusions about which particular interventions were most effective, the indicative results for the overall approach were promising. On average the drivers drove 20 percent more fuel efficiently than their baseline measures, representing cash savings of £1146 per year for each cabbie.

The recommendations arising from the project as a whole are outlined in detail in the final report. They include making habitual behaviour (rather than just behaviour) the focus of interventions, making fuel efficiency a pass/fail criterion on the driving test, changing driving habitats to encourage fuel efficiency, incentivising taxi drivers to become ambassadors for fuel efficiency, providing more salient feedback, and making taxis greener.

Read the final report of Cabbies, Costs and Climate Change (PDF, 2MB), or download the executive summary (PDF, 1MB).

Inside the Mind of a Cabbie

This report examines the experiences, attitudes and working habits of ten taxi drivers taking part in a national campaign to promote fuel efficient driving, supported by Shell. The campaign is built around a competition in July 2011, in which the driving behaviour of 16 of the 20 participating cabbies is measured by telemetry, all 20 of whom will have received information on fuel efficient behaviours, with the sample of ten examined in the report receiving some extra help to change their behaviours from the RSA, through a 'Steer' behaviour change workshop and the co-creation of simple design interventions to help the drivers implement Shell's driving tips.

View more information and download the Inside the Mind of a Cabbie report (PDF, 3.5MB)