Investigating the influence of the environmentalism and variety seeking on mode choice

Abstract

In the transport modelling community, there is a growing understanding that socio-economic attributes are not sufficient to characterise travellers and make forecasts about their travel behaviour. Therefore, an increasing number of studies has recently been published that integrates latent variables representing attitudes, perceptions and preferences into choice models. Since it is impossible to measure these latent variables directly, psychometric scales are used as indicators for the latent variables. For the study presented in this paper, psychometric scales for environmentalism and variety seeking have been developed and tested in a mail back survey that also contained a one-day diary and a questionnaire about socio-economic characteristics. A factor analysis is carried out to establish the predominant attitudinal factors which are then used as latent variables in a mode choice model. The results of the estimated choice models show that each of the three latent variables ‐ awareness of environmental problems, denial of environmental issues and desire for variety in the daily routine ‐ influences the mode choice of the study participants in a different way and can be attributed to other socio-economic characteristics of the participants. This indicates that the scales developed in this study are suitable for capturing attitudes that are relevant for the understanding of transport behaviour.