RESEARCH on the ROAD of Studying Traffic, Driving Habits, of Driving, Traffic, and Mobility

How do people drive on the roads and behave in traffic? How can we change driving habits and encourage more environmentally responsible modes of transportation? These are two main RESEARCH questions that the book tries to answer by holistically looking at the issues of driving, traffic, transportation, and sustainable mobility. ON THE ROAD Methodology and Practice This volume offers exactly what its title promises: research RESEARCH ON THE ROAD of Studying Traffic, Driving Habits, of driving, traffic, and mobility. It brings together the views, reflections, and scientific analyses which are largely the fruit of and Sustainable Mobility work by ethnologists, anthropologists, engineers, geographers, linguists, psychologists, and political scientists. Reading it shows that an interdisciplinary team of researchers was placed “on the road,” that is, in the actual environment and among the people who use different means of transportation. Dr. Jernej Mlekuž, Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts The book takes the readers through different aspects of driving and transportation. Visual material is included, such as illustrations, graphs, and photos, that shows how diverse life on the road is. It is interesting how we often just overlook this diversity – probably due to the fact that we are constantly surrounded by traffic, so much so that we take it for granted. After reading the book, a wider readership, including scientists and researchers, are bound to pay more attention to traffic and vehicles. Dr. Ana Hofman, Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts 19.00 EUR Edited by ISBN 978-961-05-0025-4 Podjed & Bezjak (eds.) Dan Podjed and Simona Bezjak RESEARCH ON THE ROAD platnica.indd 1 9/6/2017 12:50:08 AM RESEARCH ON THE ROAD notranjost.indd 1 9/6/2017 5:04:41 PM Research on the Road: Methodology and Practice of Studying Traffic, Driving Habits, and Sustainable Mobility © 2017, Institute of Slovenian Ethnology, Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU Editors Dan Podjed, Simona Bezjak Authors of the chapters Saša Babič, Tatiana Bajuk Senčar, Simona Bezjak, Alenka Bezjak Mlakar, Gregor Burger, Jože Guna, Simon Koblar, Luka Mladenovič, Dan Podjed, Matevž Pogačnik, Marko Polič, Emilija Stojmenova Duh, Mikhail Sysoev, Jernej Tiran Reviewers Ana Hofman, Jernej Mlekuž Translation and language review Ana Jereb, Alexandria Farris Design and layout Tanja Lozej Issued by Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU), Institute of Slovenian Ethnology, Novi trg 2, Ljubljana, Slovenia Represented by Ingrid Slavec Gradišnik Publisher Založba ZRC For the publisher Oto Luthar Editor-in-chief Aleš Pogačnik Printing house Cicero Begunje Print run 300 First edition Ljubljana 2017 CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikaciji Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, Ljubljana 656(082) RESEARCH on the road : methodology and practice of studying traffic, driving habits, and sustainable mobility / [authors of the chapters Saša Babič ... et al.] ; edited by Dan Podjed, Simona Bezjak. - 1st ed., 1st print. - Ljubljana : Založba ZRC, 2017 ISBN 978-961-05-0025-4 1. Babič, Saša, 1979- 2. Podjed, Dan 291261952 This book is accessible for free as an e-document, ISBN 978-961-05-0026-1, COBISS. SI ID=291263488: on ZRC SAZU website (http://zalozba.zrc-sazu.si/p/1409) and on the DriveGreen project website (www.drivegreen.si). https://doi.org/10.3986/9789610500261 © All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. RESEARCH ON THE ROAD notranjost.indd 2 9/6/2017 5:04:42 PM Edited by Dan Podjed and Simona Bezjak RESEARCH ON THE ROAD Methodology and Practice of Studying Traffic, Driving Habits, and Sustainable Mobility Ljubljana 2017 RESEARCH ON THE ROAD notranjost.indd 3 9/6/2017 5:04:42 PM CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 7 Dan Podjed and Simona Bezjak INTRODUCTION 9 Understanding and Changing Habits on the Road Dan Podjed AUGMENTED ETHNOGRAPHY ON THE ROAD 15 Tatiana Bajuk Senčar RESEARCHING THE CULTURE OF COMFORT 43 The Use of Interviews in Ethnographic Studies of Mobility Alenka Bezjak Mlakar THE POWER OF ETHNOGRAPHIC SENSEMAKING 63 Gregor Burger, Mikhail Sysoev, Emilija Stojmenova Duh, Matevž Pogačnik, and Jože Guna METHODOLOGY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR 81 SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT OF DRIVING STYLES 4 RESEARCH ON THE ROAD notranjost.indd 4 9/6/2017 5:04:42 PM Jernej Tiran, Simon Koblar, and Luka Mladenovič ACCESSIBILITY TO PUBLIC TRANSPORT 111 IN LJUBLJANA Review, Development, and Challenges Saša Babič DISCOVERING TRAFFIC PHENOMENA THROUGH 129 LANGUAGE ANALYSIS Marko Polič TRAFFIC AND QUALITY OF LIFE 151 Between Necessity, Wishes, and Possibilities Simona Bezjak GREENING SOCIETY 169 Social Science Approaches for Encouraging Pro-Environmental Behaviors and Lifestyles AUTHORS 192 5 RESEARCH ON THE ROAD notranjost.indd 5 9/6/2017 5:04:42 PM 6 RESEARCH ON THE ROAD notranjost.indd 6 9/6/2017 5:04:42 PM ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This volume is the result of an interdisciplinary applied research project DriveGreen: Development of an Ecodriving Application for a Transition to a Low-Carbon Society (project ID: J7-6858). The project, which started in 2014 and finished in 2017, was financially supported by the Slovenian Research Agency. Editor and author Dr. Dan Podjed acknowledges the Institute of Advanced Study and Department of Anthropology at Durham University for awarding him a Fellowship in the United Kingdom from April to July 2016. The stay was financed by the Senior Fellowship Scheme Under the DIFeREns (Durham International Fellowships for Research and Enterprise). 7 RESEARCH ON THE ROAD notranjost.indd 7 9/6/2017 5:04:42 PM 8 RESEARCH ON THE ROAD notranjost.indd 8 9/6/2017 5:04:42 PM INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Understanding and Changing Habits on the Road Dan Podjed and Simona Bezjak How do people drive and behave in traffic? How can we change driving habits and encourage more environmentally responsible modes of transportation? These are the two main questions to which this volume tries to answer. It tackles the problems of driving, traffic, transportation, and mobility fully and interdisciplinarily, rather than from a single perspective, which has tended to be the norm so far. In the creation of the book, anthropologists, ethnologists, geographers, psychologists, and electrical engineers worked together to integrate the results of their studies, to cross the boundaries between scientific disciplines and fields, and to show how we can understand and interpret driving in a broader and multifaceted way. 9 RESEARCH ON THE ROAD notranjost.indd 9 9/6/2017 5:04:42 PM Dan Podjed and Simona Bezjak The volume shows that driving habits are a highly interesting topic for research because they are part of one of the most important daily tasks and activities. The fact is that we spend a large part of our lives in cars, on bikes, buses, and other means of transportation. Through constant repetition, driving becomes an integral part of an individual’s “habitus” (Bourdieu 1980; Bourdieu 1984; Elias 1991) or learned practices and habits that are so automatic that we talk, listen to music, and even eat while driving. We often do not think at all about how we drive. Driving is not only an individual’s habit, but also a social process (Kuipers 2012). Drivers imitate each other, “learn” the formal and informal rules of traffic, adapt to situations on the road, and communicate with each other verbally and non- verbally – perhaps most obviously when they get angry at each other (Podjed and Babič 2015). What we learn on the road becomes part of individual and community processes. Traffic education plays an important role in the creation and transfer of these processes. Often it begins before even starting school, continues when we get our license to ride a bike, and later in a driving school, where we learn how to properly hold the steering wheel, shift gears, accelerate and break, understand traffic signals, communicate with other road users, and the like. Many other factors affect our driving style, and often they are subject to economic, technological, social, cultural, and geographical conditions (e.g., the state of infrastructure, the age of vehicles, traffic rules and penalties, equipment of the vehicles, climatic conditions, etc.). While making this compilation, we took into account factors that affect the ways of driving around the world. We have described how we can weave together qualitative and quantitative approaches, how useful interviews are for 10 RESEARCH ON THE ROAD notranjost.indd 10 9/6/2017 5:04:42 PM INTRODUCTION understanding driving comfort, the power ethnography has to help us understand the lifestyle of drivers, which technological tools and approaches are the most useful for analyzing styles of driving, how to explore vehicles and traffic by analyzing language, how traffic might improve or worsen our way of life from a psychological point of view, and how we can encourage environmentally friendly behavior and practices on both the road and in life in general. In the first chapter, Dan Podjed focuses on the integration of ethnography, or rather its upgrade, and technology. He uses the “part man, part machine” metaphor to explain how we can use a vehicle to learn about habits in traffic at various locations. In doing so, he tries to find a balance between qualitative and quantitative approaches and show how they can interweave. The findings from fieldwork eloquently testify how mobility affects our everyday lives in this chapter. In the second chapter, Tatiana Bajuk Senčar highlights interviews as an important method for understanding comfort and convenience. These are two important factors that influence why people choose to use cars instead of bikes or public transportation and other more sustainable forms of transportation. The chapter is structured in a way that provides useful recommendations for further research on transportation and mobility.

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