The city’s transportation department will take up a grassroots, door-to-door strategy to educate and encourage residents to move away from single-occupant vehicle travel, according to a resolution approved Thursday by Austin City Council.

Robert Spillar, director of Austin’s Transportation Department, said “personal anxiety” is often to blame when people don’t use alternate, available transit options.

Smart Trips Program, a national residential-based transportation demand management program, focuses on educating residents through personal interactions on the available transit options. The program offers incentives, such as learn to ride classes, transit instruction and group walking activities. The city began a pilot of the program in late 2015 that targeted some central Austin neighborhoods.

The program has resulted in an average trip reduction between 3 percent and 18 percent in cities across the country, according to the resolution.

Spillar told council members to think of the program as a transportation concierge service. Studies show that when people take up healthier modes of transportation, Spillar said the routines are usually sustained.

The five-year program, which will be funded through a $750,000 grant from Capital Metro Transportation Authority and a $150,000 match from the Transportation Department for the first year, will focus on yet-to-be-determined neighborhoods of the city that have the highest access to alternate forms of transportation.