https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4163-5953
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Abstract
Leisure travel is often highly car-based. In Switzerland, the research area of our study, more than 60% of all kilometers traveled for leisure purposes are traveled by car, and an increase is predicted. As traveling by car comes with many negative side-effects, a more sustainable transportation system calls for a shift to less car-based forms of (leisure) travel. This paper reports an online choice experiment, testing the effectiveness of two financial and three non-financial treatments to reduce car-based leisure travel, all which are currently being discussed in the research and political domains in Switzerland. Additionally, we control for a wide range of determinants proven to be relevant for mode choice. We asked 737 participants to imagine they are visiting family or friends living a short distance (5 km) and longer-distance (100 km) away and to report their mode choice for such trips. Findings show the tested treatments will likely have a limited effect on reducing car-based leisure travel. Results also show that car use is motivated by different reasons than public transport or bike usage. Car users mainly want to travel fast and see car travel as the only viable option. Public transport and bike users, however, attach more importance to enjoyment. Specifically, the availability of a car, bike or public transport card is significant for the mode choice and habitual use. To unfreeze existing lock-ins, we conclude that research needs to look at reasons for why drivers believe there is no alternative.
Acknowledgments
We thank Sylvain Weber for his help with the set-up and the implementation of the experiment and Adam Hearn for proofreading.
Notes
1 We use the definition for leisure mobility as it is given in the Mikrozensus Verkehr (BFS & ARE, Citation2017, p. 47). Leisure activities include visiting friends or families (most important reason for leisure travel in Switzerland), going to restaurants, visiting culture events or leisure parcs, going to sports activities or watching sports activities, doing sports like hiking, cycling, running etc., going to religious activities, going to club activities and the like. Note that shopping activities are not part of leisure activities.
2 The mode choice bike was only tested for the short-distance option.
3 Ethical review and approval as well as written informed consent was not required for this type of study with human participants in accordance with local and national legislation and institutional requirements. Participation was voluntary and participants could terminate their participation at any time without giving a reason.
4 These choices were used as dependent variables for the regression analysis, see Section 2.6.
5 The chosen mode choice was automatically filled in.
6 We have included the question on luggage since this has been found to be a relevant determinant in some articles. Nevertheless, we could not find any significant effect of it and have therefore decided on not to display it in the results section to have more room to discuss the other determinants.
7 The CO2 levy on fossil thermal fuels is a special form of tax in Switzerland. It is an ecological market-based steering instrument that aims to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels by means of price incentives. It is not intended to increase government revenue, but to internalize external cost, i.e., it includes environmental and climate cost in the selling price. In order to not weaken the overall economic power, the revenues from the CO2 levy are therefore paid back equally to companies and private individuals so that those who use fossil fuels sparingly have an advantage. The purchasing power is maintained.
8 Aerobic exercises are endurance-type exercises that increase a person’s heart rate and breathing rate over relatively long durations. Anaerobic exercises are exercises that involve short bursts of intense activity. Examples of aerobic exercise include brisk walking and riding a bicycle. Sprinting and weightlifting are forms of anaerobic exercise (Johnson, Citation2020).
9 AMEs can be roughly interpreted as follows. A one-unit increase respectively a discrete change in an independent variable, increases (+)/decreases (–) the probability of choosing a certain mode of transport by AME * 100%- points, holding all other independent variables constant. Be aware that such interpretations are only valid for infinitesimal changes in x. Therefore, ‘it is not necessarily true that dydx() = 0.5 means that “y increases by 0.5 if x increases by 1”. It is true that “y increases with x at a rate such that, if the rate were constant, y would increase by 0.5 if x increased by 1” ’ (StataCorp LLC, Citation2019, p. 1398).
10 Contains median income in Switzerland in 2018 and therefore used as reference category.