Tackling single-occupancy vehicles to reduce carbon emissions: Actionable model of drivers’ implementation intention to try public buses

Abstract

When driving a single-occupancy vehicle (SOV) on roads has become ubiquitous for certain drivers, it causes 23% of the global greenhouse gas emissions. The adoption of high-occupancy public bus transport (PT) by the SOV drivers contributes to the lower and more responsible consumption of energy. This paper predicts drivers’ implementation intention to try public buses (implementation intention) as a desirable solution to reduce carbon emissions. It builds on the renaissance of drivers’ cognitive, social, and affective factors to examine their implementation intention. An actionable model investigated their desire for services, perceived influence of referents (referents), worry to try PT (worry), intention to try PT (intention), and habit of driving every day was synthesized. This study employs 9 focus groups and solicits 653 responses from SOV drivers through web surveys. Data is analyzed using variance-based structural equation modeling of partial least squares (PLS-SEM). The empirical results indicate that their desire for comfort and convenience predicted their intention and implementation intention. Although the desire for service information and referents predicted intention, these predictors were found to have no impact on their implementation intention. The intention remains as the primary predictor of implementation intention. Strong driving habit exerts significant lower implementation intention whereas weak habit exerts higher implementation intention. On the contrary, their worry acted as an impediment to intention and implementation intention. The findings indicate that social intervention is imperative to mitigate worry and to break the habit of driving SOVs in order to promote implementation intention.