Steven Melia Steve.Melia@uwe.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer in Transport Planning
Randomised Controlled Trials, Evidence Hierarchies and Smarter Choices
Melia, Steve
Authors
Abstract
A growing body of literature aimed at policymakers as well as researchers criticises the quality of much transport research and advocates a methodological hierarchy with randomised controlled trials at the top as the solution. This article critically analyses the justification for such hierarchies, in the context of voluntary travel behaviour change programmes, whose effectiveness has been called into question. It proposes 5 criteria for the valid application of experimental methods, which suggest that such methods are only relevant to a limited range of transport research questions. It finds no valid justification for a methodological hierarchy and concludes that attempting to apply such a hierarchy would generate misleading advice for policy makers.
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Publication Date | Apr 1, 2015 |
Publicly Available Date | Jun 6, 2019 |
Journal | World Transport Policy & Practice |
Print ISSN | 1352-7614 |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 21 |
Issue | 2 |
Pages | 64-71 |
Keywords | Randomised controlled trials; Voluntary travel behaviour change; Smarter choices; Modal shift; Methodological hierarchies. |
Public URL | https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/836144 |
Publisher URL | http://worldtransportjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/30th-April-opt.pdf |
Related Public URLs | http://worldtransportjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/30th-April-opt.pdf |
Files
Randomised Controlled Trials, Evidence Hierarchies and Smarter Choices - as published.pdf
(235 Kb)
PDF
You might also like
Shared space: Research, policy and problems
(2014)
Journal Article
Examining the relationship between life transitions and travel behaviour change: New insights from the UK household longitudinal study
(2014)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Downloadable Citations
About UWE Bristol Research Repository
Administrator e-mail: repository@uwe.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search