Changing commuters’ mobility behaviors of university campuses: environmental and energy comparisons

Governments are required to take proper measures to promote the use of electric and hybrid vehicles and, more generally, to push people towards sweeter modalities including walking and biking. To reach such tight and challenging goals, local institutions should be deeply involved, and universities among them. The promotion of sustainable mobility practices among commuter students must be considered indeed an effective contribution to facilitating the transition towards greener cities. On purpose, students of the University of Palermo that daily commute from their residences to the campus are considered here. These commuters, in fact, mainly adopt traditional polluting transportation means. Avoiding the recourse to these means by supporting the use of sweeter modalities such as walking, biking, public transport and vehicle pooling and sharing, would contribute to significantly reducing the associated polluting emissions. This task might be accomplished by involving students in app-based games that would reward their greener mobility behaviors. Results of a couple of in-field campaigns including a significant sample of commuter students is presented here, along with the obtainable environmental and energy benefits. The proposed method thus candidates itself as an effective tool that not only academic institutions but also local administrations could adopt to make their decarbonization pathways. Finally, it is argued whether universities (as well as local administrations) could be candidate for carbon or energy credits within the existing trading schemes because of the reduction of their energy consumption and greenhouse gases release.