Abstract
Travel happiness has drawn increasing attention in recent years. However, the empirical research in developing countries’ context is very limited, and few studies consider both cognitive and affective evaluations during traveling. This study uses web-based survey data collected in Beijing, China, and applies multiple regression analysis to examine impacts of sociodemographic attributes, travel characteristics, residential environment, mode consonance, self-evaluation, and health conditions, on travel happiness. Satisfaction with Travel Scale (STS) is used to measure travel happiness. Results show that for trips using active travel modes, traveling by walking has higher travel happiness than by nonmotor vehicles. For those trips traveling by motor vehicles, company shuttle bus trips have the highest travel happiness ratings, followed by automobile trips and public transport trips. Transport mode consonance is significantly positively correlated with travel happiness. Residential environment, self-reported optimism, and daily happiness have great positive impacts on travel happiness. Living in suburban areas is more satisfying for walking and car trips, but travel frequency, travel duration, and perceived travel time length have significant negative effects on travel happiness. Public transport use with friends is enjoyable, but unpleasant with work partners. More happiness when listening to music/radio or reading during traveling is demonstrated. Finally, policy implications and potential extended research topics are recommended.
Highlights
Subjective well-being (SWB) is generally used in psychology to describe people’s overall satisfaction with life
It needs to be emphasized that scholars usually use two terms “travel satisfaction” or “travel happiness” to describe travellers’ evaluations for their trips, but travel satisfaction mostly refers to the cognitive evaluation of the trip, while travel happiness includes affective dimension as well
Public transport trips have the lowest travel happiness, and car trips lie between active travel modes and public transport. ese findings are consistent with prior research studies [9, 11, 19, 29, 33]
Summary
Subjective well-being (SWB) is generally used in psychology to describe people’s overall satisfaction with life. It includes how people “feel” and “think” about their quality of life from both affective evaluation and cognitive judgement [1]. People who have positive cognitive and affective experience while traveling on a certain transport mode have a greater probability of continuing to use it [5] and of participating in more out-of-home activities [6]. It needs to be emphasized that scholars usually use two terms “travel satisfaction” or “travel happiness” to describe travellers’ evaluations for their trips, but travel satisfaction mostly refers to the cognitive evaluation of the trip, while travel happiness includes affective dimension as well
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