From attitude to satisfaction: introducing the travel mode choice cycle

ABSTRACT

Many studies analysing the relationship between attitudes and travel behaviour have found that travel attitudes have an important impact on travel mode choice. More recently, studies focusing on how people experience travel have shown that travel satisfaction is influenced by the chosen travel mode. The desire and intention of using a travel mode – which can be considered as important predictors of mode choice – have, however, received limited attention. Furthermore, existing studies mostly have a narrow scope and lack integration of the above constructs. In this paper, we introduce the travel mode choice cycle (TMCC), a comprehensive model aiming to link attitude, desire, intention, behaviour, and satisfaction by integrating prominent social-psychological attitude theories such as the theory of planned behaviour, the model of goal-directed behaviour, and the theory of cognitive dissonance. We argue that the constructs of the TMCC are strongly interrelated such that they can affect each other in direct and indirect ways. The proposed cycle provides valuable insights for policymakers to stimulate the use of desired travel modes, such as public transport and active travel. We end this paper by providing suggestions for future studies to simultaneously investigate the relationships specified by the TMCC.

KEYWORDS:

• Travel behaviour
• travel mode choice
• attitude
• desire
• intention
• satisfaction

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions, making it possible to improve the quality of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Although multiple interpretations and definitions of attitude exist, we mainly follow the commonly used definition formulated by Ajzen (1991, p. 188), indicating that an attitude “refers to the degree to which a person has a favourable or unfavourable evaluation or appraisal of the behavior in question”.

2 Although we link preference to attitude, we do acknowledge that preference may also (to a certain extent) be related with desire and intention, since preferences can – in contrast to attitudes – be affected by elements such as perceived behavioural control and constraints. As a result, the alternative with the most positive attitude will not always be the preferred alternative. Furthermore, travel behaviour studies often use the terms stated and revealed preferences to refer to people’s intended and actual behaviour (e.g. Fujii & Gärling, 2003; Hensher, 1994).

3 The question used in the teleportation test is: “if you could snap your fingers or blink your eyes and instantaneously teleport yourself to the desired destination, would you do so?” (Mokhtarian & Salomon, 2001).

4 Although desire and intention are often treated as synonyms, Perugini and Bagozzi (2004) indicate that desires are less performable, less connected to actions, and enacted over longer time frames compared to intentions. For example, bad weather conditions may result in a person having the intention to use a car, although having a desire to cycle.

5 Subtle differences between intention and expectation seem to exist. While intention mainly refers to near upon and certain situations (e.g. travel mode choice for commute trips the next week), expectations often refer to situations which are less certain and further in time. For instance, studies have focused on future expected autonomous vehicle ownership and related changes in travel behaviour (e.g. Nielsen & Haustein, 2018), while others have analysed expected teleworking frequencies or shifts in mode choice after the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g. Conway, Salon, Capasso da Silva, & Mirtich, 2020).

6 Satisfaction is associated with the experience of either transient emotional responses or more enduring moods during an activity episode (such as a trip), as well as a cognitive appraisal of the activity episode. The appraisal information it generates is temporally constrained and vanishes when the person no longer thinks about the activity episode (Clore & Schnall, 2005). As another form of appraisal, attitudes are memory representations of positive or negative evaluations of objects, persons or behaviours that repeatedly may be activated to guide behaviour or choice. An attitude does not automatically disappear when a person stops thinking about the attitude object. Attitudes are thus not constrained by time, although this does not imply that they never change (Ajzen, 1991; Albarracin & Johnson, 2019; Clore & Schnall, 2005; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993).

7 A personality trait can be defined as a predisposition to perform a certain group of behaviours, both directly and indirectly through the influence of attitudes (Ajzen, 2005). A lifestyle can be defined as an individual’s way of living which both affects and is affected by his or her outlook of life and motivations, including beliefs, interests, and general attitudes (Bourdieu, 1984; Weber, 1978).

8 Besides an indirect effect of perceived behavioural control on behaviour (through intention), perceived behavioural control can also directly influence behaviour (as shown by the dashed arrow in Figure 1). For instance, a person who is confident to perform a certain behaviour will probably be more likely to perform that behaviour compared to a person who doubts his/her ability, even though both may have the same intention to perform the behaviour. Furthermore, perceived behavioural control can be used as a substitute of actual behavioural control in case of limited information regarding the behaviour or when new and unfamiliar elements have entered into the situation (Ajzen, 1991).

9 Social factors mainly refer to appropriate and expected behaviours (for persons holding particular positions in a group), and how well a person thinks they can perform a behaviour, and are therefore comparable to social norms and perceived behavioural control described in the theory of planned behaviour.

10 These theories emphasise instead the role of persuasion and behavioural outcomes for the formation and change of attitudes (see e.g. Albarracin & Johnson, 2019).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek [grant number 12F2519N].