The Relationship of Vehicle Type Choice to Personality, Lifestyle, Attitudinal, and Demographic Variables

This research focuses on exploring the travel attitude, personality lifestyle, and mobility factors affecting individuals' vehicle type choices, as well as developing a disaggregate choice model of vehicle type based on both these factors and typical demographic variables. A literature review looks at studies related to vehicle type choice models, vehicle use models, and mobility. The study then describes the characteristics of vehicle classification model used in the study, and the key explanatory variables included in the vehicle type choice model. The relationships of vehicle type to travel attitude personality, lifestyle, mobility, and demographic variables are then individually examined u sing one-way ANOVA and chi-squared tests. A multinomial logit model is then developed for vehicle type choice

A Survey of Multitasking by Northern California Commuters: Description of the Data Collection Process

An empirical study investigated whether multitasking could affect the utility of travel. This report describes the survey instruments and data collection process that yielded a rich dataset

The Effects of Gender on Commuter Behavior Changes in the Context of a Major Freeway Construction

To study the commuter travel behavior impacts of a nine-week reconstruction of Interstate 5 (I-5) in downtown Sacramento, California, a series of three internet-based surveys was conducted. This paper offers a preliminary analysis of the first two of those surveys, focusing on the role of gender in commuters’ responses. Avoiding rush hour and changing route were the most common responses, and women were more likely than men to employ them. Among the changes that reduce vehicle-miles traveled, increasing transit use and increasing telecommuting were the most common. Overall, women were 21% more likely to make at least one change than men were. A binary logit model of the choice to increase transit use suggests that persuading current transit users to increase their transit use was easier than convincing nonusers to switch. Respondents who heard about the increased level of transit service were more likely to increase transit use. Employer transit subsidies supported increases in transit use (but only for women), while variable work hours (for women) discouraged them. Men in managerial/administration and women in larger households were also more likely to increase their transit use

Wenn die Telekommunikation den Verkehr so gut ersetzen kann, warum gibt es dann immer mehr Staus?

Verkehr einzusparen war immer schon ein Grund für die Entwicklung und Anwendung von Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien. Aber warum nehmen Verkehr und Staus beim gegenwärtigen Ausbau dieser ständig verbesserten Technologien weiter zu? Zwölf Gründe für dieses paradoxe Ergebnis werden hier vorgestellt - und vier Gründe, warum eine gewisse Substitution erwartet werden kann.Saving travel has always been a motivation for the creation and use of information and communication technologies. So with the ongoing spread of ever-improving technologies, why do travel and congestion continue to increase? Twelve reasons for this paradoxical result are presented, as well as four reasons why some substitution can be expected

Impacts of Home-Based Telecommuting on Vehicle-Miles Traveled: A Nationwide Time Series Analysis

This study estimates the impact of telecommuting on personal transportation using a multi-variate time series analysis of aggregate nationwide data spanning 1966-1999 for all variables except telecommuting, and 1988-1998 for telecommuting. Three dependent variables were modeled, in direct and per-capita forms: ground vehicle miles traveled (VMT), airline passenger miles traveled (PMT), and the sum of those two variable, loosely referred to as total miles traveled. The first part of the analysis modeled each dependent variable (1966-1999) as a function of conventional variables representing economic activity, the cost of transportation transportation supply, and demographics. In the second part of the study, the residuals of the first part (1988-1998) were modeled as a function of the number of telecommuters. Secondary data sources were used for the study. After the modeling results are presented, the study offers several public policy recommendations, based on the conclusion that telecommuting appears to have a statistically significant, albeit modes in magnitude, effect on reducing travel

Cognitive Mechanisms of Behavior Change in the Case of In-Vehicle Fuel Economy Feedback

This paper presents results from a year-long study on driver feedback, driver attitudes, and the adoption of ecodriving behaviors. Narrowly defined, ecodriving represents only the set of behaviors that a driver can use to minimize the energy use of a trip after the trip has begun. The general ecodriving behaviors are moderating acceleration, top speed, and braking. Ecodriving has long been recognized as a potential source of reductions in transportation energy use, with reduction estimates ranging widely from less than 5% to over 20% depending on context. In-vehicle feedback is one way to motivate ecodriving by connecting drivers with salient information suited to their personal goals. Although many studies have tested unique feedback designs, little research has been conducted into the cognitive precursors to driver behavior change that may underlie the adoption or rejection of ecodriving practices, and therefore underlie the effectiveness of any feedback design. This study examines both precursor cognitive factors and driver behavior changes with the introduction of energy feedback, using a framework hypothesizing that attitudes, social norms, perceived control, and goals influence behavior and behavior change. The study finds that the introduction of a feedback interface can both activate these cognitive factors and result in behavior change. Furthermore, the study finds that there was an overall 4.4% reduction in fuel consumption due entirely to one group that showed increases in their knowledge of fuel economy and reported high levels of technical proficiency during the experiment. The second group made no improvement and may have been confused by the feedback. In addition, statistically significant relationships are found in the effective group between the magnitude of cognitive change and the magnitude of behavior change – supporting the theoretical framework. Finally, the baseline (prefeedback) performance of the drivers was an important model factor, indicating that drivers that already use highly efficient styles do not benefit much from feedback

Going soft: on how Subjective Variables Explain Modal Choices for Leisure Travel

Most studies on the link between the built environment and modal choice characterize and model this relationship by objectively measureable characteristics such as density and diversity. Recently, within the debate on residential self-selection, attention has also been paid to the importance of subjective influences such as the individual’s perception of the built environment and his/her residential attitudes and preferences, resulting in models that take account of both the objective and subjective characteristics of the built environment. However, self-selection might occur on other points than residential location as well. Expanding the analysis to also include both objective and subjective characteristics at other model levels (i.e., not only stage of life characteristics but also personal lifestyles; not only car availability but also travel attitudes, not only modal choice but also mode specific attitudes) is the purpose of this paper. To this end, a modal choice model for leisure trips is developed using data on personal lifestyles and attitudes, collected via an Internet survey, and estimated using a path model consisting of a set of simultaneously estimated equations between observed variables. While controlling for subjective lifestyles and attitudes, the effects of the built environment and car availability on modal choice can more correctly be determined and thus insights into self-selection mechanisms can be gained. Moreover, we compared the results of a model with and without these subjective influences. The results show that subjective characteristics at various model levels are important decisive factors of modal choices for leisure travel