A Belcarra student has made the long journey to India to speak at the 12th International Conference on Travel Behaviour.
The conference takes place in Jaipur and David McNamara is looking forward to representing his paper on behalf of Trinity College, Dublin.
David, a former student of Belcarra National School, Balla Secondary School, and NUI Galway, is working on a PhD in the Centre for Transport Research in Trinity College.
He completed a paper with supervisor Dr Brian Caulfield on the socio-economic factors that lead people to choose a particular mode of transport for their daily commute, the monetary costs to the economy, and CO2 emissions created from these choices.
Research found that CO2 emissions in Dublin cost the economy in excess of €1.5 billion a year due to the fact that well over 50 per cent of commuters use their car to travel to work. This is due to a number of socio-economic factors, particularly household location, in that many people live on the outskirts of Dublin with no viable public transport alternative. This is due to the legacy of the housing boom which created urban sprawl with inadequate transport infrastructure in many suburbs of Dublin.
Other findings show that younger, well educated, individuals were more likely to use public transport and emit less CO2, and females are more likely to be lower emitters of CO2 than men.
Also individuals with young families are likely to be higher CO2 emitters due to the fact that the car is the only option with dependent children. This paper focused on commuters in Dublin using census data, but Mr McNamara hopes to extend this research nationwide soon.
David McNamara, who is son of Noreen and Frank McNamara, Belcarra, travelled to India on December 9 and will return home in time for Christmas on December 20.
