Karyn Scerri, Ph.D. student and researcher at the Institute for Climate Change and Sustainable Development at University of Malta was awarded the WCTRS Y-II Innovation Grant for her ongoing research in sustainable mobility under the supervision of Prof. Maria Attard.

The WCTRS PhD Students’ Grants aim to inspire PhD students to compete for further transport-related research and submit papers for the WCTR conferences. The WCTRS-YII is a collection of five grants for scholars conducting transport research, consisting of one Innovation Grant and four Prestige Grants, with abstract proposals being reviewed and selected by the Steering Committee of the Society. The awardees will present a paper as part of a Special Session at the 16th World Conference on Transport Research taking place July 2023 in Montreal, Canada.

The research project proposed focuses on sedentary travel behaviour in Malta, entitled ‘Understanding the Impact of Pedestrian Intervention on Laziness and Car Dependency Reduction in a European Island’. Sedentary behaviour in transport, particularly time spent sitting in motorised vehicles, has been associated with negative physical and psychological health repercussions, even in sufficiently physically active individuals. This underlines the need to identify correlates and determinants associated with sedentary travel behaviour, including the potential impact of the surrounding urban environment.

Although habits and experiences have been identified as psychological determinants of travel behaviour, there is an evident gap in exploring the concept of laziness and its implications on car dependence. This research will focus on exploring the phenomenon of laziness within transport and the constructs of people’s lazy user behaviour in modal choice for short distance trips. This will be integrated with the use of pedestrian-focused intervention as a tool for analysis, to better understand and assess the potential impact of pedestrian interventions in encouraging active travel.