Achieving sustained behaviour change
One key to the success of TravelSmart is that it enables people to find their own ways of changing a few of their day-to-day travel choices, and to discover the benefits for themselves. As a result, while contributing to a significant shift in overall travel patterns, it may be expected that the resulting changes in individual behaviour are sustained by virtue of their relatively small scale, if not their positive effects on personal quality of life.
Furthermore, while it is likely that for some people the behaviour change promoted by TravelSmart is short-lived, it is equally probable that the effect on others (even some not involved in the original Individualised Travel Marketing - ITM campaign) increases over time as they discover more and better ways of integrating sustainable travel choices into their daily lives.
There is growing evidence to support these arguments. For example, repeat travel surveys conducted two years after the large-scale TravelSmart pilot project in Gloucester (2001) showed that the behaviour change achieved by the original ITM interventions was 'locked in'. Independent monitoring of bus patronage following a TravelSmart programme conducted by Socialdata in Western Australia showed that its impact was still growing up to four years later.