Towards happy and healthy travellers: A research agenda

Abstract

Well-being and health are two important elements contributing to people's quality of life. Although well-being and health have been analysed for many decades, an increased attention since the beginning of this century can be noticed, partly due to new ways of measuring people's subjective well-being and the rapid growth of obesity and obesity-related diseases. Over the past ten years studies have started analysing the link between travel and well-being, mainly focussing on aspects explaining people's satisfaction with travel. However, the role of travel satisfaction has not yet been fully explored, as it can also impact people's travel attitudes, travel behaviour and residential location choice. Previous studies on travel and health have mainly focussed on traffic safety, air pollution and recently also on physical activity. These studies have indicated that physical activity − and as a result overall health levels − are affected by people's residential neighbourhood and travel behaviour (e.g., mode choice). However, a clear picture on how physical activity, the built environment, attitudes and travel behaviour are linked to each other is missing. Furthermore, it is also possible that physical activity obtained by travel (e.g., by walking or cycling) can affect people's well-being and satisfaction with travel. In this paper, a research agenda aiming at a better understanding of the links between well-being, health and travel behaviour is presented. Three objectives can be distinguished: (i) the role of travel satisfaction in explaining travel behaviour, travel attitudes and residential location (choice), (ii) creating new insights into the link between travel and health, and (iii) linking well-being and health in a travel-behaviour context.