Making the way to the university environmentally sustainable: A segmentation approach

•Attitude based segmentation is used to identify better approaches for a modal shift.•Results are based on a large-scale sample from 241 academic institutions.•There is considerable potential for greening the way to and from university.•The findings have implications for transport policy and public transport companies.

This paper introduces approaches for public transportation companies and transport policy to induce a shift towards environmentally-friendly modes of transport. The results are based on survey data from 241 collaborating academic institutions and more than 28,000 respondents in Germany, Austria and the German-speaking part of Switzerland. By drawing on an attitude-based segmentation approach, target groups and related personal characteristics are identified in order to suggest customized strategies for greening the way to and from university. The paper has implications for the development of new or the improvement of existing dedicated services and derives strategies to address selected customer groups more directly. Such approaches are assumed to have a substantial effect and to be more efficient and effective than vague soft-policy measures.