This dissertation seeks to understand travel satisfaction, travel affinity, and other psychological factors in relation to travel demand, such as the desire for trip making, willingness to spend time traveling, and choice of travel mode. The research was based on the Mood State in Transport Environments survey of 247 Android users (about 6,000 completed trip surveys) in the Blacksburg-Roanoke, VA, Washington, DC, and Minneapolis, MN metropolitan areas from fall 2016 to spring 2018. Respondents answered an entry survey, tracked their travel for 7 days, and answered a trip survey associated with each trip. The dataset provides opportunities to examine travel and activities during travel at the within- and between-person levels.
Three studies in this dissertation examined three measures of the positive utility of travel and their relationship with travel behavior. I quantified (1) the desirability of trip making, (2) the ideal travel time related to different travel characteristics, and (3) the effect of satisfaction on commute mode choice. The first study examines the patterns of travel affinity with various travel modes, trip purposes, and activities during the trip. Travel affinity was measured by asking the willingness to forgo a trip when there is an opportunity to do so. I found that this is a valid and strong measure of the positive utility of travel. Travelers were more willing to make trips when they traveled on foot or bicycle, talked with someone during the trip, and took shorter trips. Additionally, commute trips were less likely to be enjoyed as compared to other, non-commute trips.
The second study focused on (1) testing the validity of the "ideal travel time" measurement and (2) measuring factors associated with the willingness to spend time traveling. I found that although ideal travel time was a strong measure of the positive utility of travel, it was very weakly associated with the desirability of trip making and satisfaction with trips. Although few people wanted zero commute time (3%), the number of trips that had zero ideal travel time was much higher (16%), indicating that the desired travel amount may vary across different trip and environmental characteristics and purpose. Ideal travel time was longer for active travel trips, leisure trips, when conducting activities during trips (e.g., talking, using the phone, looking at the landscape), when traveling with companions and during the weekend.
The third study investigated the role of travel satisfaction and attitude in mode choice behavior. This is one of the very few studies that have considered the role of these psychological factors in multimodal mode choice based on revealed preference data. I found that satisfaction and attitude toward modes and travel played a significant role in the choice model; it also modified the role of travel time in the models. However, the perception of travel time usefulness was insignificant in the model. Scenario analyses based on the model results showed that it is optimal to invest in active transportation and public transit at the same time in order to shift car drivers to these sustainable modes.
These studies contribute to the small but growing body of literature on the positive utility of travel and transrational decision making in transportation. It is the only study that employed a smartphone survey with a repeated measure of trips over the course of 1-2 weeks. The third study is among the earliest attempts to include satisfaction and attitude together into mode choice models.
This dissertation has several implications for research and practice. First, it calls for better measurements of well-being and satisfaction. Second, models with appropriate psychological factors would more realistically resemble actual travel behavior. Including satisfaction in the choice model changes the coefficient of travel time (and potentially cost), which modifies the value of travel time savings, a basis of most benefit-cost analyses in transportation planning and engineering. Better mode choice and trip generation models will generate more reliable predictions of future infrastructure use and investment. Third, studies of travel affinity (positive utility of travel) have implications for demand modeling and management practice. Practitioners should reevaluate the effectiveness of travel demand management strategies aimed at reducing travel time and trips, such as congestion pricing (e.g., tolls), online shopping, and telecommuting. / Doctor of Philosophy / People have various motivations to travel every day. For some, traveling is a means to an end to get from one place to another. Their main travel purpose is to perform some activities at destinations, such as grocery shopping, working, or visiting a friend. For others, traveling is a joy to get some fresh air, to be on one’s own company, to enjoy driving or exercising (while walking or bicycling), in addition to conducting activities at destinations. This idea of traveling for fun is still unpopular in transportation research. This dissertation seeks to understand the patterns of travel and motivations: who are traveling for fun, and when? Whether this affinity and satisfaction for travel drive people’s decision to choose a travel mode?
To answer these questions, I measured the affinity for travel in two ways: willingness to make trips (i.e., travel from one place to another) and desired amount of time spent on travel. I found that people were willing to travel more when they conducted certain activities during trips, such as talking to others, talking on the phone, or other activities. Commuting was less fun as compared to other travel purposes, such as socializing or leisure. Bicyclists and pedestrians liked their trips and wanted to travel more than car drivers and bus users. People who were satisfied with their commute trips made by one mode would be more likely to use that mode for commuting.
The affinity for travel is relevant to urban residents’ mental well-being and demand for travel, which translate into health and congestion relief benefits. The results from my studies suggest that more attentions on traveling for fun and multitasking should be paid to account for future mobility options, such as ride hailing (e.g., Uber, Lyft) and autonomous vehicles. These modes have promised fun from activities during travel, the autonomy, and convenience, and thus would generate more traffic on the road while providing less social and environmental benefits.
The results from this dissertation would inform city planners, engineers, and health practitioners on planning for sustainable cities by improving well-being for transportation users and accommodate sustainable modes of transport, such as bicycling, walking, and transit by providing users with safe and satisfactory travel environments. The results also imply potential pitfalls of the current planning practice such as overestimating the value of travel time savings, benefit-cost analyses, and the effectiveness of travel demand management strategies, such as telecommuting and using information and communications, in reducing travel.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/107127 |
| Date | 28 June 2019 |
| Creators | Le, Huyen Thi Khanh |
| Contributors | Public Administration/Public Affairs, Buehler, Ralph, Hankey, Steven C., Fan, Yingling, Sanchez, Thomas W. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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