Heatwaves and Travel Behaviour Adaptation in Temperate Climate Conditions

Heatwaves have emerged as a pressing environmental and public health issue, including inhistorically temperate regions poorly acclimatized to extreme heat. Despite this urgency,little is known about the social processes shaping heat exposure and limiting people’s ca-pacities to adapt. Focusing on England, this paper examines travel behaviour adaptationsto summer heatwaves from 2007–2019 and the heat-vulnerability factors shaping responses.A multi-level modelling approach links England’s National Travel Survey with ERA5 cli-mate re-analysis data to examine patterns of stay-home and medical-trip-making. Overall,people widely shelter at home during extreme heatwaves yet are slightly more active duringmoderate ones. Distinguishing across heat-vulnerability factors, people working or havingworked in manual/routine occupations are less likely to shelter at home during extremeheatwaves, older individuals remain more active during moderate heatwaves while thosewith mobility difficulties are more likely to withdraw into their homes, and medical servicesare sought more by home-renters and less by non-White individuals.