In a collegial discussion with Prof. Dr. Ralf Brand (University of Potsdam), the idea arose to use the "natural experiment 9-Euro-Ticket" for a study by the think tank "think.sportainable". Under Kuhn's direction, Carina Nigg, a doctoral scholar of the German National Academic Foundation at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and a research assistant at the University of Bern, and Dr. Julia Lohmann from the Chair of Sports Education at the University of Augsburg, designed the questionnaire together with students from the University of Bayreuth: The questionnaire focuses on how people got to the sports field, gym, or swimming pool - by car, bicycle, streetcar, or whether they used multiple modes of transportation, as well as whether they traveled alone or with others, and what the weather was like. Athletes were surveyed directly or motivated to participate online for the first time in May, immediately before training or competition. Follow-ups will take place monthly until September. The aim is to show whether the 9-euro ticket has a lasting impact on the choice of transport in popular sports.
Prof. Dr. Peter Kuhn is a pioneer of empirical sports ecology in the German-speaking world. His dissertation "Indoor-Sport und Ökologie" (Indoor Sport and Ecology), published in 1996, already highlighted ecologically relevant aspects of sport by demonstrating that athletes are dependent on motorized individual transport, that this generates considerable amounts of CO2, and that the sport-related use of public transport depends on its structural quality. Kuhn and his colleagues are working on this to provide decision-makers in sports organizations and sports policy with a basis for further action. The researchers expect results in the fall of 2022.
