Car Drivers’ Compliance with Route Advice and Willingness to Choose Socially Desirable Routes

Abstract

This study describes the results of a stated choice experiment conducted to analyze route choice behavior of car drivers under the influence of advice and feedback on environmental consequences of their trips. Framing of the route advice is varied in regard to the goal of the agency providing the advice (system or individual optimality) and extent to which it is generic or tailored to the specific preferences of the person. Findings suggest that under conditions of rich information about the attributes of choice alternatives, advice is discarded when it is supposed to serve the driver's own interests, and information allows the individuals to evaluate outcomes independently, but advice is taken into account when it is said to serve traffic management objectives. In line with expectations, the effect of advice is larger when it is labeled as personal compared with when it is labeled as generic. Another finding is that the effect of advice on evaluations of route alternatives is not uniform across attributes. Whereas some attributes become suppressed in the evaluation, others become more salient. The study further provides evidence that travelers are willing to trade social objectives against individual-level objectives. Implications of these findings for the design and use of travel information systems as an instrument for traffic management are discussed and problems for future research are identified.