Development of a Hybrid Choice Model to Investigatethe Effects of Teenagers' Attitudes Towards Walking and Cycling on Mode Choice Behavior

The scope of this paper is to develop an advanced Stated Preferences (SP) survey, customized to capture teenagers’ behaviors and estimate hybrid mode choice models, in which the utilities depend both on the attributes of the mode, as well as on the latent variable “willingness to walk or cycle”. The SP scenarios include four alternative modes for the trip to school: car (escorted by parents), bus, bicycle and walk, while the attributes are travel time, travel cost, walking time to the bus station, availability of bikepaths, sidewalks and parking places and weather conditions. The data are drawn from a survey that took place in all the high-schools of Cyprus in 2012. The sample consists of 4,174 teenagers (12 to 18 years old) covering the 8.7% of the total high-school population. For the model estimations a total of 8,348 SP observations is used. It is found that the existence of bikepaths and wide pavements significantly affect the choice of active transport. The latent variable enters significantly into the choice model specification assuring that unobserved variables should be implemented in the choice process. “Willingness to walk and cycle” has a positive effect on the choice of those alternatives, while a negative effect on the choice of car. Moreover, it is found that parents’ level of education and mode use patterns and habits influence the development of attitudes towards mode choice. The results of the study provide insights on policies and campaigns that may help the next generation to develop a greener travel behavior.

Development of a Hybrid Choice Model to Investigatethe Effects of Teenagers’ Attitudes Towards Walking and Cycling on Mode Choice Behavior.

Kamargianni, M., Polydoropoulou, A. (2013)

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