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Travel mode choice and travel satisfaction: bridging the gap between decision utility and experienced utility

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Abstract

Over the past decades research on travel mode choice has evolved from work that is informed by utility theory, examining the effects of objective determinants, to studies incorporating more subjective variables such as habits and attitudes. Recently, the way people perceive their travel has been analyzed with transportation-oriented scales of subjective well-being, and particularly the satisfaction with travel scale. However, studies analyzing the link between travel mode choice (i.e., decision utility) and travel satisfaction (i.e., experienced utility) are limited. In this paper we will focus on the relation between mode choice and travel satisfaction for leisure trips (with travel-related attitudes and the built environment as explanatory variables) of study participants in urban and suburban neighborhoods in the city of Ghent, Belgium. It is shown that the built environment and travel-related attitudes—both important explanatory variables of travel mode choice—and mode choice itself affect travel satisfaction. Public transit users perceive their travel most negatively, while active travel results in the highest levels of travel satisfaction. Surprisingly, suburban dwellers perceive their travel more positively than urban dwellers, for all travel modes.

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Notes

  1. For a given variable, the BMSS is based on the distance of the cluster means from the grand mean. Because the clusters are constructed precisely to maximize the distinctiveness between clusters (as well as to maximize the homogeneity within clusters), standard statistical tests are not appropriate for judging the differences between clusters. However, it is appropriate to note that the larger the BMSS, the more strongly the associated variable contributes to the distinction between clusters (Mokhtarian et al. 2009).

  2. Bus, tram and train are combined because train use is low, especially in suburban neighborhoods.

  3. It has to be borne in mind that the remembered utility may also be affected by trips preceding the most recent one. The relative importance of the most recent trip is likely to differ across different types of trips, as well as the intensity of experienced events during the most recent trip (cf. peak end rule).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geography Department, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Jonas De Vos, Veronique Van Acker & Frank Witlox

  2. Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA

    Patricia L. Mokhtarian

  3. School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Tim Schwanen

  4. Department of Urban Studies, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Veronique Van Acker

Authors
  1. Jonas De Vos
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  2. Patricia L. Mokhtarian
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  4. Veronique Van Acker
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  5. Frank Witlox
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Correspondence to Jonas De Vos.

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De Vos, J., Mokhtarian, P.L., Schwanen, T. et al. Travel mode choice and travel satisfaction: bridging the gap between decision utility and experienced utility. Transportation 43, 771–796 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-015-9619-9

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