Travel Behavior Study of Route 9 and Route 116 Commuters: Before Coolidge Bridge Resconstruction. Project No. UMAR12-10, UTC Year 12;Final rept

摘要

There is a huge body of literature in social psychology describing seventy years of theory and experimentation relating attitudes to behavior. Much of it suggests a stronger causal link between choices and attitude than between attitudes and choices-attitude models conditioned on revealed choice explain more than knowing peoples' attitudes and determining what choice they will make. Alternate analyses suggest that we need to use attitudinal and other data to determine respondents' intentions rather than desires in order to better predict behavior. Attitude studies are becoming more prevalent in studying transportation behavior, but researchers vary in what kinds of attitudes are considered and how attitudes influence the transportation decision process. In this paper we briefly highlight the social psychology literature, review transportation applications, and present a case study. Cognitive, affective, and behavioral attitudes help explain the intentions of those surveyed for the case study. Our results and the literature suggest that attitudes are very important, but they recommend caution regarding survey wording and capturing behavior intentions. Additionally, the results suggest that a circular behavior process including attitudes is better at explaining choices compared to using only cognitive and affective attitudes to explain behavior.