Importance of motives, self-efficacy, social support and satisfaction with travel for behavior change during travel intervention programs

Abstract

The present field study investigates the reduction of car use through a voluntary travel behavior intervention program that provides participants with temporary free public transportation. Three factors – self-efficacy, social support and satisfaction – have previously been shown to be important for behavior change during physical activity intervention programs. In travel behavior interventions, however, these factors have often been studied individually and less is known about their combined effects on travel behavior change. Furthermore, while motives for participating in travel behavior interventions have been frequently studied within travel behavior interventions research, there is a lack of studies investigating the influence of motives on travel behavior change. To better understand the importance of different motives as well as the importance of self-efficacy, social support, and satisfaction with travel on behavior change, a series of surveys were administered to 181 participants before, during, and after their participation in a voluntary travel behavior intervention. The results show that greater self-efficacy and social support during the intervention led to greater travel behavior change. These results indicate that in order to gain better results from travel behavior interventions, individuals should be helped to increase their travel-related self-efficacy, and significant others should be involved to provide social support. We discuss possible ways of accomplishing this.