Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations: Car-Free Living Trials, 2024

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The Going Car Free project, coordinated by climate action charity Possible, follows individuals as they hang up the keys to their cars for three weeks. Possible are funded partners in the ESRC Centre for Climate and Social Transformation, and this project aims to understand the immediate and lasting impacts of the trial on everyday mobility. For the first week of the trial, participants were monitored using their vehicle as usual. The following three weeks they attempted to continue their typical everyday routines without the use of their private vehicle. Researchers from the University of Manchester, Cardiff University, and the University of Bristol interviewed participants with the aim of understanding the changes that individuals made to live a car-free lifestyle, what their experiences of car-free living were, and what barriers (both personal and structural) – if any – prevented them giving up their cars altogether. Qualitative interview data for two car-free living experiments are included within this data deposit. Experiment 1 involved 12 people in four cities (Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds and London), though one individual did not complete the trial. The individuals were selected to ensure a range of experiences and backgrounds, sampling for age, gender, childcare and caring responsibilities, ethnicity, and disability. The challenge ran from 10th January to 6th February 2022, and the interviews were conducted immediately post-trial in February, and approximately 12 weeks after May/June 2022. Experiment 2 was conducted in partnership with Low Carbon Oxford North (LCON) and was conducted in March 2024. 12 drivers from across the city, from a range of backgrounds and locations (again, sampled to reflect diverse backgrounds, identities, and personal circumstances, according to sample frame criteria that covered gender, age, ethnicity, religion, disability, long-term health conditions, childcare and caring responsibilities, types of employment, and location). Interviews were conducted in the first week of the challenge, and two weeks after the challenge had finished. In both experiments, participants were paid to participate in the research, and their local travel expenses for their car-free weeks were reimbursed. They also received one-to-one support, and additional information about the options available to them, including a briefing pack with details and tips for walking, cycling, using public transport, and trying car clubs or car sharing. They had access to cycle hire, cycle repair, complementary cycle insurance, and car club membership.

Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations is a global hub for understanding the profound changes required to address climate change. At its core, is a fundamental question of enormous social significance: how can we as a society live differently - and better - in ways that meet the urgent need for rapid and far-reaching emission reductions? While there is now strong international momentum on action to tackle climate change, it is clear that critical targets (such as keeping global temperature rise to well within 2 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels) will be missed without fundamental transformations across all parts of society. CAST's aim is to advance society's understanding of how to transform lifestyles, organisations and social structures in order to achieve a low-carbon future, which is genuinely sustainable over the long-term. Our Centre will focus on people as agents of transformation in four challenging areas of everyday life that impact directly on climate change but have proven stubbornly resistant to change: consumption of goods and physical products, food and diet, travel, and heating/cooling. We will work across multiple scales (individual, community, organisational, national and global) to identify and experiment with various routes to achieving lasting change in these challenging areas. The Going Car Free project, coordinated by climate action charity Possible, follows individuals as they hang up the keys to their cars for three weeks. Possible are funded partners in the ESRC Centre for Climate and Social Transformation, and this project aims to understand the immediate and lasting impacts of the trial on everyday mobility. For the first week of the trail, participants were monitored using their vehicle as usual. The following three weeks they attempted to continue their typical everyday routines without the use of their private vehicle. Researchers from the University of Manchester, Cardiff University, and University of Bristol interviewed participants with the aim of understanding the changes that individuals made to live a car-free lifestyle, what their experiences of car-free living were and what barriers (both personal and structural) – if any – prevented them giving up their cars altogether. Qualitative interview data for two car-free living experiments are included within this data deposit.