Professor Ian Walker

Personal statement:

I work on human and social aspects of transport, energy, water and the built environment. Examples include work on driver interactions with cyclists; social biases surrounding car use (and the concept of motonormativity); energy and water literacy, in-home displays and interventions to empower householders to reduce consumption; and structural influences on environmental behaviours.

I am currently leading the UKRI LOCAST project on how future buildings can be made lower in embodied carbon emissions by better understanding their occupants.

Key topic areas of research or interest:

• Traffic safety
• Transport choices
• Energy consumption
• Water consumption
• People’s responses to the built environment
• Air quality/air pollution

Collaboration opportunities:

I have extensive experience working with researchers, industry, third sector and policymaker and am open to collaborations across all these sectors.

Publications:

Context change and travel mode choice: Combining the habit discontinuity and self-activation hypotheses. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494407000898

Old habits die hard: Travel habit formation and decay during an office relocation. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0013916514549619

Drivers overtaking bicyclists: Objective data on the effects of riding position, helmet use, vehicle type and apparent gender. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001457506001540

How smart do smart meters need to be? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132317304225

Image, not environmentalism: A qualitative exploration of factors influencing vehicle purchasing decisions. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0965856417300253

Inducing [sub] conscious energy behaviour through visually displayed energy information: A case study in university accommodation. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378778813006828

Drivers of energy saving behaviour: The relative influence of intentional, normative, situational and habitual processes. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421519304124

Active travel to school: a longitudinal millennium cohort study of schooling outcomes. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/13/3/e068388.abstract

Motonormativity: how social norms hide a major public health hazard. https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/abs/10.1504/IJENVH.2023.135446