IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/hgx9d_v1.html

Global fuel shocks as catalysts of sustainable travel behaviour change

Author

Listed:
  • Pearson, Lauren
  • de, Ana Luiza Santos Sa
  • Gerhard, Robyn
  • Abrahams, Jamie
  • Nosratzadeh, Hossein
  • Cumming, Toby
  • Beck, Ben

Abstract

A sharp rise in fuel prices in March 2026 created a potential window for sustainable travel behaviour change in Australia. Yet who is positioned to change how they travel remains poorly understood. A population-representative online survey of 2,177 Australian adults, conducted in April 2026, captured pre-crisis travel behaviour, mode shift considerations, and conditions supporting sustained change. Explainable machine learning (XGBoost, SHAP, supervised k-means clustering) identified amenable subgroups for walking, cycling, e-bikes, and public transport. Three quarters of respondents had changed or considered changing their travel behaviour. Walking was the most commonly adopted new mode (20%), and travel avoidance the most common adaptation (41%). Financial hardship and younger age were dominant predictors of amenability. Supervised clustering revealed three recurrent archetypes - financially pressured young adults, employed urban professionals, and regional residents lacking service access. Realising equitable sustainable travel outcomes requires transport systems offering affordable, safe alternatives to all population groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Pearson, Lauren & de, Ana Luiza Santos Sa & Gerhard, Robyn & Abrahams, Jamie & Nosratzadeh, Hossein & Cumming, Toby & Beck, Ben, 2026. "Global fuel shocks as catalysts of sustainable travel behaviour change," SocArXiv hgx9d_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:hgx9d_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/hgx9d_v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/6a0e83310efd944f45ed2704/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/hgx9d_v1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:hgx9d_v1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.