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

摘要

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, inwhich the utilities depend both on the attributes of the mode, as well as on the latentvariable "willingness to walk or cycle". The SP scenarios include four alternative modesfor the trip to school: car (escorted by parents), bus, bicycle and walk, while the attributesarc travcl time, travel cost, walking time to the bus station, availability of bikcpaths,sidewalks and parking places and weather conditions. The data are drawn from a surveythat took place in all the high-schools of Cyprus in 2012. The sample consists of 4,174teenagers (12 to 18 years old) covering the 8.7% of the total high-school population. Forthe model estimations a total of 8,348 SP observations is used. It is found that theexistence of bikepaths and wide pavements significantly affect the choice of activetransport. The latent variable enters significant ly into the choice model specificationassuring 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 ofeducation and mode use patterns and habits influence the development of attitudestowards mode choice. The results of the study provide insights on policies and campaignsthat may help the next generation to develop a greener travel behavior.