Transportation (2008) 35:585599

DOI 10.1007/s11116-008-9168-6

Effect of attitudes, habit and affective appraisal on mode

choice: an application to university workers
Cristian Domarchi Alejandro Tudela Angelica Gonzalez

Published online: 15 May 2008

Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. 2008

Abstract Traditionally, car use and modal choice, in general, have been studied under
the random utility framework, assuming that individuals choose a particular mode based on
their own socio-economic characteristics and the attributes describing the available
options. This approach has originated useful models which have been able to explain
modal split. However, at the same time, it has received critics because of its poor characterization of human behaviour and the weakness of its assumptions. Research has
suggested that socio-psychological factors could help to understand better the choice
process. In this paper, attitudinal theory and its link to human behaviour were used to select
attitudes, habit and affective appraisals as explanatory variables. They were measured
using ad-hoc instruments, which were combined with a revealed preference questionnaire,
in order to obtain information about the traveller and the chosen mode. This instrument
was applied to a sample extracted from staff members of the University of Concepcion,
Chile. Analyses of attitudinal variables showed that car use habit was positively correlated
to attitude and positive emotions towards car, implying that breaking the vicious circle of
car use through persuasive techniques might be difficult. Estimation of discrete choice
models showed that attitudinal variables presented a significant contribution to modal
utility, and helped to improve both fitness and statistical significance. Results showed that
choice can be influenced by factors related to attitudes and affective appraisal, and that
their study is necessary in order to achieve an effective car use reduction.
Keywords Triandis theory
Psychological factors
University workers

Mode choice
Travel behaviour

C. Domarchi
A. Tudela (&)

Department of Civil Engineering, Universidad de Concepcion, Concepcion, Chile
e-mail: atudela@udec.cl
A. Gonzalez
Department of Psychology, Universidad de Concepcion, Concepcion, Chile

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Introduction
Urban transport based on automobile has become the dominant system in developed countries
(Daz 2001). Even though the automobile was conceived as a mean of transport, actual
evidence indicates that car is much more than just a way of going from one place to another
(Steg 1998). In simple individual terms, car users report many practical benefits with respect
to the alternative modes, such as security, comfort, independence and control, among others
(Turrentine 2003; Steg et al. 2001; Anable and Gatersleben 2004). This might lead to conclude that the increasing car ownership and use levels around the world might not always
come as a result of cost and time savings (Ory and Mokhtarian 2005; Johannson et al. 2006).
It is known that car is an extremely inefficient transport mode, because of its low occupancy
rates and externalities associated with it (Daz 2001). Furthermore, transport systems designed
for car use are as inefficient as the automobile itself, mainly due to high amounts of space used in
infrastructure, and to low operation speeds needed to achieve the system optimum (Whitelegg
and Haq 2003). From this standpoint, it can be understood that governments seek to implement
policies aimed at reducing car use and promote more environmental friendly modes, such as
public transport (see Anable et al. 2006; Ampt 2003, as examples).
What is not very clear is why most of these policies tend to fail, or to have unsatisfying
results. Research in developed countries has successfully proved that a number of psychological
and sociological variables help to reinforce the relative attractiveness of car as an option when
the individual decides how to travel. Traditional approaches have studied modal choice from a
microeconomic standpoint, which has given useful results, but has not been helpful to completely understand those factors that have an influence on the individuals decision (Stringer
1981). Since this subject deals directly with the complexity of human behaviour, it is necessary
that all scientific disciplines involved provide the needed knowledge to correctly identify the
interacting variables, and use these results to assist decision makers in the definition and design
of appropriated policies (Johannson et al. 2006; Anable et al. 2006).
This paper attempts to provide a simple and effective way of taking into account the
underlying psychological factors on mode choice, and to add them into the traditional
discrete choice-modelling framework. To our understanding, this might be a first application of these concepts in a Latin American context.
It is shown that the theoretical basis of attitudinal theory and its link to human behaviour can
provide information about socio-psychological variables influencing modal choice. From this
framework, attitude, habit and affective appraisal are chosen as relevant variables, and measured through ad-hoc instruments applied to a random sample coming from staff members of
the University of Concepcion. The questionnaire also contained questions relative to the trip to
work, which allowed to construct a revealed preference (RP) database, and to estimate simple
Multinomial Logit (MNL) models, adding the effect of attitudinal factors through dummy
variables in the linear-in-parameters utility functions. Results show that car use is positively
related to positive affective appraisals and attitudes, and high frequency of past use. Besides,
discrete choice models are improved when psychological variables are added.

Theoretical aspects
Attitudinal theory
In the modal choice field, attention has traditionally focused on the evaluation of attributes
related to the available options (see, for instance, Ortuzar and Willumsen 2001; Hensher

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et al. 2005), but it is recognized that an interaction of beliefs, values, emotions, attitudes
and personality traits occurs when an alternative is chosen (Johannson et al. 2006; Ben
Akiva et al. 2002).
Research in social psychology has shown that attitude theory, and its relationship with
behaviour, can help to understand the decision-making process underlying modal choice.
In this context, an attitude must be understood as a long-term evaluation of an aspect of the
social world, which is denominated an attitudinal object (Garling et al. 1998). This evaluation has a direction (i.e. it is positive or negative) and an intensity (Baron and Byrne
2005). Three basic and correlated components form an attitudinal response: cognitive
(linked to knowledge), affective (related to emotions) and behavioural (translated into
conduct) (Baron and Byrne 2005).
Expectancy-value theory indicates that the strength of an attitude depends on two
factors: the expectations that individuals have regarding the results of the behaviour
(expectancy) and the importance (value) that they assign to these possible results. These
factors are combined to generate the strength, combination that is modelled as a product,
because if any of these factors were null, then the attitude towards the behaviour would be
neutral (Garling et al. 1998).
Link between attitudes and behaviour
Many psychological theories have studied the link between attitudes and behaviour; mainly
because of the interest in predicting the future conduct through the adequate measurement
of attitudes (see Forward 2004 for an application in the transport field).
This research uses Triandis theory of interpersonal behaviour (TIB) (Triandis 1977) as
foundation. This theory has been successful explaining conduct, but it has not been widely
used because of the complex correlation among its components.
Triandis TIB, presented in Fig. 1, indicates that attitude and behaviour are positively
correlated, but the relationship between them is not direct. Indeed, it has been found that
intentions, and not attitudes, are the immediate antecedents of conduct. Triandis proposes
that attitudinal, affective and social factors precede intention, which interacts with habit
and contextual aspects, producing a final behaviour. It might happen that a habitual conduct is not always preceded by a behavioural intention or that a strong habit might help to
predict behaviour more accurately than an intention.
Habitual behaviour has some sub optimal characteristics, due to the lack of searching
and processing of information regarding existing options, and is, therefore, very difficult to
change through persuasion (Bamberg et al. 2003). A habit emerges within a stable situational context, but, once developed, it can be generalized to many other situations, where
stability is not needed for the persistent of the habitual behaviour. This is the origin of
Verplankens frequency-response habit measure (Verplanken et al. 1994), used to assess
habit in this work.
Affective factors were studied to take into account the emotions evoked by the individual when travelling. An emotional episode corresponds to a specific place, object or
event that can bring an extreme emotion. This particular episode is able to originate an
emotional disposition, creating a stable and long-term tendency to respond consistently to
emotionally arousing situations. An affective appraisal consists of attributing an affective
quality to a thing, event or place, which can lead to acquiring an attitude towards that
object (Anable and Gatersleben 2004; Reeve 1994).

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Expectancy
Attitude
Context

Value

Roles
Norms

Social
Factor

Intention

Self-concept

Emotions

Affective
Factor

Past Frequency

Behaviour

Habit

Fig. 1 Theory of interpersonal behaviour, by Triandis (Anable et al. 2006)

As pointed out before, social factors can also have an effect on behavioural intentions.
These factors are not considered in this work but it is suggested that they should be studied
in future research. Indeed, given the TIB structure, path analysis looks like the way
forward.
Contextual factors can help to translate an intention into a conduct. These factors have
been widely studied in transport modelling. Modal choice models, based upon the random
utility theory, state that the probability of an individual choosing an option is a function of
his/her socio-economic characteristics and the relative attractiveness of that option (Ortuzar and Willumsen 2001). Thus, every alternative is associated with some particular
attributes, which in turn define an alternative-specific utility. It is supposed that individuals will choose the alternative with the highest utility. Seeing that the choice strategy is
unknown to the modeller (and the individual might not even be conscious about it), it is
assumed that utility has a random component. The assumption of different probabilistic
distributions originates different models (Ortuzar and Willumsen 2001; Hensher et al.
2005; Domencich and McFadden 1975). If the error component is assumed to be distributed Gumbel IID, with homogeneous matrix of variancecovariance across all
alternatives, then the popular Multinomial Logit (MNL) model is originated (Ortuzar and
Willumsen 2001).
This approach has had several criticisms from the perspective of social scientists,
mostly due to its assumptions (rational decision-making, perfect information, etc.) and the
weak characterization of human behaviour (Stringer 1981). More complex mathematical
structures have allowed models to be more flexible and include more realistic assumptions,
but the criticisms remain valid. An interesting line of work has included attitudes and
personality traits through the latent variables approach, integrating this method to the

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estimation of the modal choice models, leading to the understanding of the effect of the
underlying variables (Johannson et al. 2006; Ben Akiva et al. 2002; Svenson 1998).
This research focused on measuring users habit, attitudes and affective appraisals
towards their modes of transport, using conventional methods and adapting them into adhoc questionnaires. The premise is that these factors have an important effect on modal
choice and, therefore, should be considered when estimating a discrete choice model. The
impact of social factors and personality traits on mode choice were left aside in this work,
deferring them for further research.

Methods
Sample
A 400 individual random list, out of 3,000 people, was obtained from the Universitys Staff
Office. This figure was mainly conditioned by University staff privacy rules. Three hundred and twenty-five out of these 400 individuals were finally contacted and just 183
provided valid responses. Despite this rather high response rate (56%), the sample could
not be considered representative of the Chilean context, because of its relatively highincome level. The final sample size also represents a problem when attempting to generalize the obtained results. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that this paper attempts
only to gain a better understanding of the choice phenomenon, by identifying and measuring the psychological variables associated with it. In no case it is intended to infer
conclusions from this sample for the whole University and country population.
The sample contained relatively more clerical staff than the observed value for University population, but was equally proportioned in terms of gender, and had a similar
average age (49.1 years). A majority of respondents (71.6%) arrived by car to the University campus in the morning, where and when the interview was carried out, either as a
driver or as a passenger. Only 20.2% of respondents used public transport, while 8.2%
arrived walking.
Information regarding the 183 valid response sample is summed up in Table 1; more
details about the sample can be found in Domarchi (2007).
Instruments to measure attitudinal variables
Valid methodologies were added to an ad-hoc questionnaire to measure psychological
variables per person.
Attitudes towards car and public transport were measured using 5-point Likert scales
(Baron and Byrne 2005). Two scales were used for each mode: one measured the individuals expectancy in terms of the results of the conduct (i.e., for me, using car to arrive
to work is good); the other measured the importance that the individual gives to these
results (i.e., for me, having a car to arrive to work is important), to consider the
expectancy-value theory. Attitude was computed as the product of these two scores, thus
giving two attitudinal indexes (one for car, one for public transport), ranking from 1 to 25.
Verplankens response-frequency questionnaire was used for measuring habitual frequency (Verplanken et al. 1994). A list of 10 non-working activities (e.g. visit a friend) was
given to respondents, who were asked to provide the mode they would eventually use (car,
public transport or other) in order to accomplish those activities. A 10-point car use habit
index was then computed, counting how many times the respondent had mentioned car as his/

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Table 1 Sample socio-demographic characterization, by chosen mode

Number of respondents, by chosen modea

Characteristic

1
Gender
Age (years)

Personal income level

Occupation
Cars per household

Total
6

Male

42

15

10

84

Female

72

10

99
42

Less than 40

26

4155

55

12

82

More than 55

33

10

59

Low

29

11

14

72

Medium

56

77

High

29

34

Academic

90

119

Clerical

24

14

64

23

63

11

11

96

44

55

114

17

13

20

15

183

0.5

10.9

1.6

100.0

More than 2
Total

62.3

9.3

7.1

8.2

Chosen mode: car driver = 1; car passenger = 2; bus = 3; urban train = 4; shared taxi = 5; walk = 6;
bus/taxi = 7
b

A shared taxi is a taxi used by different individuals at the same time

her preferred option to develop different activities. Work-related activities were excluded
from the questionnaire, taking advantage of the expected context independence of habitual
behaviour and intending to reduce the importance of cognitive components on the replies.
For affective appraisal, Osgoods semantic differential was used (Thorndike 1999;
Osgood et al. 1976). This differential corresponds to a rating scale intended to capture the
connotative meaning of a particular concept. A set of semantic scales, with two ends, is
prepared to capture the hidden meaning of the concept. Each scale has perfect antonym
words in each end. Respondents are asked to state which is the position of their chosen
mode (concept) in every semantic scale, according to a first impression. The rating of
the concept in each one of these scales allows the construction of a semantic space, with
Euclidian properties, where different attitudinal objects can be compared based in their
relative locations. Different groupings of the semantic scales define certain affective
dimensions, which can be thought as the main axis of the semantic space.
In this work, four dimensions of the semantic differential were used: the usual evaluation,
potency and activity, and an additional one: control (see Corraliza 1987 for more information). Each dimension contained four semantic scales, each one with words conveniently
chosen to be perfect antonyms in Spanish. The complete list of words can be found in
Domarchi (2007). Therefore, each individual had to respond 16 semantic scales for this item.

Results
Survey results were analysed in two steps: first, psychological elements were studied in the
context of each instrument, in terms of internal consistency, relative scores, differences

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between groups and correlations between constructs, in order to verify the reliability of the
instruments and understand the effect that the attributes had on mode choice, according to
each socioeconomic segment. SPSS was used for these analyses (Pardo and Ruiz 2002).
Then, instrumental elements were used for building a conventional database for a RP
experiment, which included information relative to the chosen and the non-chosen available options. A MNL model was then estimated via maximum likelihood (Ortuzar and
Willumsen 2001), using ALOGIT software (Daly 1992). Psychological variables were
taken into account through dummy variables.
Only the most relevant results are presented in this paper; more details on the fieldwork,
statistical analyses and econometric results can be found in Domarchi (2007).
Psychological analysis
Habit
Car use habit was relatively strong within the sample, with an average score of 7.72
(standard deviation = 2.85). The highest mean score in car use habit belongs to car drivers
(8.95), while the lowest corresponds to bus users (2.92). Car use habit was stronger for car
users (both drivers and passengers), and weaker for public transport users (both in buses
and taxis), with walkers having an average score in the middle of these two groups.
Habitual frequency of car use was, of course, positively correlated with car availability.
This can explain the low habit scores associated with public transport users, as they do not
really choose not to travel by car: they do not have feasible alternatives available.
Walking, on the other hand, appears to be a voluntary choice, associated with closeness to
the workplace. In this context, people who walked to work in the morning are used to
travelling by car for other (leisure) activities.
Finally, car use habit is strongly correlated to car ownership. Strong habits are associated
with resistance against persuasion, and thus it might be very difficult to change the behaviour
of car users through this mechanism. This might point to the need of studying the car use
reduction problem in association with the issue of reducing car ownership levels, since both
phenomena are extremely correlated. In fact, it might be argued that the inclusion of car
ownership as an explanatory variable in modal split models can be acting as an indirect
measurement of car use habit. More research is needed to prove this statement.
Attitude
The quality of any psychological test must be determined studying its degree of reliability.
One of the most used indexes for psychometric reliability is Cronbachs alpha (see
Thorndike 1999 for more information), which measures the closeness between the obtained
responses and the target construct to be measured (attitude, in this case). This relationship
is more reliable when the test is closer to 1.
Attitudinal questionnaires were consistent enough, reporting Cronbachs alpha indexes
equal to 0.78 (attitude towards car), and 0.60 (public transport). In general, attitude towards
car is more positive (average = 17.88, standard deviation = 6.90) than attitude towards
public transport (average = 15.14, standard deviation = 6.60). Both indexes were statistically different (p \ 0.0001), and presented very low levels of correlation (r = -0.123,
p \ 0.011). This means that, for this sample, a positive attitude towards car does not
always relate to a negative attitude towards public transport. This can open an interesting

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possibility of behavioural change even when people have strong attitudes towards car use,
and needs to be studied in depth.
As expected, car users (both drivers and passengers) have stronger and more positive
attitudes towards car than public transport users, whose attitudes are more neutral. Conversely, public transport users have more positive attitudes towards their modes than car
users. Walkers, on the other hand, have negative attitudes towards car and public transport.
This is a very interesting fact. Many studies state that, in many occasions, people try to
justify their behaviour once it has been executed, trying to reduce the uncomfortable
feeling that is associated to cognitive dissonance (gap between attitudes and behaviour).
This can be achieved in many ways; in this case, attitude was measured after the behaviour
was developed, and so it is possible that people who went to work in public transport
pondered the positive elements of their choice in a better way, and concentrated only on
them for the evaluation. The opposite might have occurred to people who walked to work,
who seem to have negative attitudes towards both car and public transport, to justify their
own and only possibility to walk. An interesting research possibility opens if attitudes
before the actual choice are measured and compared with attitudes after the choice process.
When the two components of the attitudinal response, expectancy and value, were taken
into account, and users are grouped according to their respective chosen mode, it is
possible to see that, in general, people are aware of the importance of having a good public
transport system, even though they are not always willing to use it. This can be due to the
effect of publicity on individuals: it is possible that people change their attitudes following
the influence of media, but their behaviour intentions are likely to remain intact.
Finally, correlation between habit and attitude (r = 0.314, p \ 0.01) was found, even
when in the original form of the TIB this relation was not made explicit. This might
indicate that, even if habitual behaviour is not always preceded by an intention and thus its
frequency can be a better predictor of behaviour than attitude, it is also likely that a strong
habit can lead to develop a positive attitude towards a conduct (in this case, car use), due to
an increased perceived control or to the aforementioned tendency to reduce cognitive
dissonance. On the other hand, it would not be surprising if habit could be able to precede
the formation of an attitude, or strengthen it if it already exists, even in the particular case
of modal choice. To confirm this appreciation, more research work is required.
Affective appraisal
The semantic differential chosen to measure affective appraisal was intended to measure
only the mode effectively chosen by the individual. The questionnaire was oriented to
characterize different attitudinal objects, and therefore different consistency indexes were
obtained. All Cronbachs alpha indexes were high enough (0.80 for car drivers, 0.76 for car
passengers, 0.86 for bus users, 0.82 for taxi users and 0.61 for walkers) to be accepted as
consistent measures of affective appraisal.
Each one of the concepts used in the semantic differential had a positive pole, made
equivalent to an affective score equal to 7, and a negative pole, equivalent to a score of
1. Neutrality towards the attitudinal object (chosen mode) in that particular scale was,
therefore, associated with a score of 4.
Transport Modes in the Semantic Space. For a global analysis and adequate interpretation of the results, average scores were calculated for each user, given a mode and for
each semantic scale. Then a dimensional score was calculated, computing the average
score for the semantic scales that define one of the four semantic dimensions. In this way,

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using the definition of geometric distance it was possible to obtain duv, the distance
between modes u and v in the semantic space:
v
u K
uX
duv t
xuk  xvk 2 ;
k

where xuk and xvk are the dimensional scores assigned to modes u and v in the k-th of the K
considered dimensions. Of course, in this particular semantic differential, K = 4 (four
dimensions, each having four scales). Table 2 contains the semantic distances for each
pair.
It can be seen that drivers and passengers evaluated car in a similar way, as their
distances present a small semantic distance. Walking presents a similar affective appraisal
to car use, which might be related to the relative sense of independence they share.
Appraisals of bus and taxi are very similar, as their semantic distances are close to zero.
On the other hand, the highest semantic distances occur between walkers and public
transport users. Apparently, people who walk to work evoke much more positive feelings
towards the travel experience than those who use public transport. Car is also located far
away from public transport in the semantic space.
Since every user only evaluated their own used mode, the conclusions extracted from
this matrix are clear: car users and walkers have a much more positive emotional and
affective link to their respective modes. Public transport users, despite having a rather
strong habit of use and positive attitudes, still manifest lower affective appraisals towards
their modes. This can be linked to the undesired levels of anxiety and negative feelings
evoked by public transport use, which have been reported in some other contexts (Steg
1998; Anable and Gatersleben 2004; Ory and Mokhtarian 2005).
Semantic Scales for Each Mode. Internal analyses for the semantic differentials applied
to each mode were developed in order to extend the conclusions, make them more precise
and find out the reasons behind the affective scores. This included the calculation of the
corresponding correlation matrixes between the semantic scales for each mode.
It was found that car drivers appear to have a rather high affective appraisal towards their
mode, especially when considering the evaluative dimension of the semantic differential. In
terms of specific semantic scales, the most interesting results come from the fact that the
safe concept presented statistically significant correlations with comfortable
(r = 0.532, p \ 0.01), clean (r = 0.451, p \ 0.01) and fast (r = 0.516, p \ 0.01).
Apparently, comfort, cleanliness and speed tend to increase the feeling of safety that the trip to
work has for car drivers, and thus reduces the undesired levels of anxiety or arousal that might
be associated to it. Fast, on the other hand, is also associated with comfortable
(r = 0.419, p \ 0.01), nice (r = 0.411, p \ 0.01) and good (r = 0.428, p \ 0.01),

Table 2 Semantic distances for all pairs of modes

Mode

Car driver

Car passenger

Bus

Shared taxi

Walk

Car driver

0.46

1.95

1.77

0.59

Car passenger

0.46

2.35

2.13

0.53

Bus

1.95

2.35

0.52

2.27

Taxi

1.77

2.13

0.52

1.98

Walk

0.59

0.53

2.27

1.98

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whereas the strongest association of calm was with clean (r = 0.504, p \ 0.05), which
again leads to state that a clean mean of transport is almost always associated with a calm,
relaxing and pleasant travel experience.
Similar conclusions were found for car passengers. It is important to note that their
evaluation in the control dimension was stronger than the average score in the strength
dimension (p \ 0.002), despite the fact that they actually give control of the travel
experience to other individual. This could mean that car passengers give importance to
their perceived control during the trip. Perhaps knowing the routes and being familiarized
with the journey reduces undesired anxiety and allows the evocation of positive emotions.
Bus users present the more negative affective appraisal, especially in the evaluative and
control dimensions of the differential. The correlations found for this modes users follow
the same pattern: the comfortable concept is associated with nice (r = 0.659,
p \ 0.01) and safe (r = 0.747), but also with clean (r = 0.705, p \ 0.01). Apparently, the level of cleanliness of the public transport mode is much more important for
public transport users than for car users: it is also correlated to safe (r = 0.733,
p \ 0.01), clear (r = 0.696, p \ 0.01) and great (r = 0.580, p \ 0.05).
For taxi users, affective appraisal was superior to that reported by bus users, even
though the difference was not statistically significant. Again, cleanliness is a very
important concept, correlated with good (r = 0.545, p \ 0.05), nice (r = 0.516,
p \ 0.05), simple (r = 0.449, p \ 0.05), known (r = 0.614, p \ 0.01) and quiet
(r = 0.617, p \ 0.01), which comes to confirm the fact that a clean mean of transport is
important in the process of attaching positive emotions to the chosen transport mode.
Walking enjoys a very positive affective appraisal. The most impressive relationship
was found between good and safe (r = 1.000, p \ 0.01), which is indicative of the
importance of the simplicity of the walking process in a positive affective evaluation by the
user. Apparently, any difficulty found in the way to work would have the effect of
decreasing the positive affect generated towards the journey.
Group Analysis. An ANOVA was conducted to find differences between socio-demographic groups in each of the semantic scales. It was found that women find their transport
modes more known than men (p \ 0.01), and that academics consider their modes more
comfortable (p \ 0.03), nice (p \ 0.01) and good (p \ 0.02) than clerical staff.
Clearly, this is due to the fact that most of the interviewed academics (83.1%) travelled to
work by car, a mode that was comparatively better evaluated than public transport, which
is used much more widely by staff members.
Discrete choice models
Discrete choice models (MNL) were estimated, incorporating attitude, affective and habit
factors. This was made using dummy variables and was oriented to find out whether better
models can be got when using non-instrumental attributes.
Database generation
In order to properly estimate a discrete choice model using data from the survey, it was
necessary to define the sets of available options for each user. In the survey, information
about the perceived available options for each user was collected, defining an effectively
available option as one that was actually mentioned by the respondent. Walking was

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excluded as a travel option during model estimation due to the lack of alternative modes,
given the short distances involved.
Chosen modes were characterized through their reported level of service and cost
variables (travel time for car users; cost, travel, waiting and walking time for public
transport users). Then, locations for each individual were plotted on a map of the metropolitan area of Concepcion. The cost of travelling by car was indirectly computed with the
trip distance and fuel consumption data. Attributes corresponding to non-chosen modes
were obtained through in-field measures, creating a database whose main attributes are
displayed in Table 3.
Model estimation
For correct model estimation, and to ensure internal consistency of the database, the
following groups of users had to be excluded from the analysis:
Users with only one feasible available mode,
Users who made a binary choice where one of the options was walking (previously
mentioned),
Users who reported living in distant locations, or
Users with unreasonable waiting or walking times.
A sample of size n = 93 was then obtained, and used for a MNL estimation, with linearin-parameters utility functions. Four different models were estimated: the first one only
with the usual level of service and cost variables, and the other three adding the attitudinal
variables in order to increase statistical significance and explanatory power.
The maximum likelihood estimators for the first model are shown in the first column of
Table 4. It can be seen that, even though q2 (k) is rather high and all of the coefficient
present economically consistent signs, none of them are significant at the usual 95% of
confidence. This might be due to the low sample size and the usual difficulties inherent to
multiple sources of data in RP experiments (Ortuzar and Willumsen 2001; Hensher et al.

Table 3 Attribute values for each alternative

Attribute

Statistics

Car

Bus

Shared taxi

Travel cost (CL$)a

Range

211771

250380

300500

Average

497.7

343.6

364.6

Standard deviation

240.9

46.3

59.0

Range

440

1045

145

Average

15.2

17.3

17.5

Standard deviation

6.6

6.4

8.0

Range

113

130

Travel time (min)

Waiting time (min)

Walking time (min)

Average

4.3

5.7

Standard deviation

2.5

4.6
230

Range

230

Average

13.0

7.6

Standard deviation

5.6

4.8

USD 1 = CL$ 540

Attribute not applicable to this alternative

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2005). Because of this, and to the nature of this research, which look for the possible
effects of attitudinal variables on the usual framework, these low levels of significance
were accepted for the coefficients.
Estimated model shows that there is still an amount of variance that cannot be explained
by instrumental variables, as modal constants are statistically significant. Seeing that
attitudinal variables were measured through separate questionnaires, and observing the
reduced sample size, it was decided to add them to the model through dummy variables. In
this way, a continuous but limited variable is separated in discrete intervals, and each
interval is analysed separately during the estimation. It can be shown that, for N intervals,
only N - 1 dummies are needed (Ortuzar and Willumsen 2001).
Three intervals (high, medium and low) were defined for car use and public transport
habit, and added to the respective utility functions. With the inclusion of these variables
(Model 2), it can be seen that mode specific constants reduce their relative importance and
statistical significance, and that both dummy variables for habit are statistically significant.
Apparently, this is showing that the observed behaviour is not only ruled by the maximum
utility criterion, but also by a strong habitual component, that develops without the
mediation of cognitive processes during choice. It is probable that this fact was hidden
behind the modal constants in the first model. Habit increases choice probability for each
mode, with a non-linear influence on the utility function, possibly meaning that, the
stronger the habit, the simpler it is to choose a certain transport mode, not taking into
account the level of service and cost variables.

Table 4 Results from MNL estimation, under different specificationsa

Coefficient

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Model 4

Car driver constant

1.785(1.2)

-0.625 (-0.3)

1.769 (1.2)

Car passenger constant

-0.998 (-1.0)

-3.903 (-1.7)

-1.803 (-1.2)

-3.863 (-2.8)

Taxi constant

0.8813 (1.3)

0.6306 (0.9)

0.9155 (1.4)

0.6445 (1.1)

Cost (CL$)

-0.001713 (-0.8) -0.001355 (-0.6) -0.001487 (-0.6) -0.001489 (-0.7)

Travel time (min)

-0.1263 (-1.8)

-0.1341 (-1.8)

-0.1416 (-2.0)

-0.08284 (-1.2)

Waiting time (min)

-0.07422 (-0.6)

-0.08308 (-0.6)

-0.08051 (-0.6)

-0.05136 (-0.4)

Walking time (min)

-0.1839 (-1.2)

-0.4032 (-1.2)

-0.1923 (-1.2)

-0.2815 (-2.9)

H1 (strong habit dummy) b

2.255 (1.8)

H2 (moderate
habit dummy)

1.565 (1.6)

A1 (positive
attitude dummy)

1.317 (2.0)

P (positive affect
towards car dummy)

2.358 (2.5)
55.63 (0.7)

SVTtravel (CL$/min)

73.73 (0.8)

98.97 (0.6)

95.23 (0.6)

SVTwaiting (CL$/min)

43.33 (0.5)

61.31 (0.4)

54.14 (0.4)

34.49 (0.3)

SVTwalking (CL$/min)

107.36 (0.8)

297.56 (0.3)

129.32 (0.6)

189.05 (0.8)

LL*b

-32.8

-29.1

-30.4

-29.7

q2 (k)

0.312

0.388

0.361

0.376

Sample size equals 93 in all cases. t-test in brackets

Coefficient was not estimated in this specification

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597

Attitudes towards car and public transport were added to the model in the same fashion.
They were analysed through two intervals (one dummy variable): strong/positive or weak/
negative attitude towards the respective mode. It is observed (Model 3) that, again, the
respective coefficient has statistical significance, even though the effect is not as strong as
in the case of habit, seeing that the modal constant of car is still significant and that the
fitness indexes and statistical tests do not improve in the same way as before.
Finally, again due to small sample size, affective appraisal had to be reduced to two
intervals (positive and negative emotions), taking into account the average score in the
semantic differential. In this case, the car specific constant resulted non-significant, and
thus had to be eliminated from estimation. Again, the affective dummy variable is significant, and appears to be explaining some part of the information that was previously
hidden by modal constants.
It can be said that the incorporation of attitude, habit and affective appraisal, even with
the simplified method used here, improves the fitness and statistical quality of the models,
despite the small sample size. It must be noted that variables with the highest t-ratios are
precisely those associated with a psycho-sociological construct, over the level of service
variables. In fact, the cost coefficient is not significant in any of the specifications. This can
be pointing to the possibility that, even in the random utility framework, the effect of
certain variables, pertaining to the individual and his relationship with the social world, can
be of high importance during mode choice. When examining the database it was found that
many individuals made economically inconsistent choices, and that this behaviour can only
be explained through attitudes, habit or affect. Precisely this fact is what makes this model
highly inconsistent in terms of subjective values of time and their relationship with wage
and expenditure rates.

Conclusions
This paper attempted to show that modal choice is a complex process, which not only
involves socio-economic factors, but is also related to psycho-sociological variables.
Triandis theory of interpersonal behaviour allowed us to extract attitude, habit and
affective appraisal as variables that could have an influence on modal choice. The sample
size and its composition do not allow us to extend these conclusions to the whole population but, in spite of this, some interesting conclusions arose from the field experiment.
It was shown that these variables have a strong influence on mode choice. Study of
correlations showed that individuals with strong car use habit do not develop a behaviour
intention before choosing to use car. Once they are habitually using it, it is possible for
them to develop a positive attitude towards car that could even make them have positive
affective appraisals related to that mode. Conversely, if a positive attitude exists, it is
possible that positive emotions are evoked by car use, and then habits are developed and
strengthened. Either way, car use becomes a vicious circle, which is nearly impossible to
break using persuasion techniques, because habit is not based upon a rationalization of the
problem, and does not always involve informed choices.
When psychological factors were added to the discrete choice model framework,
models improved their fitness and statistical significance, despite the simplicity of the
methodology and the reduced sample size. It is recommended that future research uses
other mathematical tools to analyse the effect of psychological variables on mode choice.

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This field of research is just beginning in less developed countries. It is suggested that
further research is carried out in order to properly assist policies aimed at using of more
environmental friendly modes.
Acknowledgement This research was partially funded by Project 205.091.040-1.0 of the Research Office,
University of Concepcion, Chile.

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Author Biographies
Cristian Domarchi works for DICTUC, a subsidiary company of Universidad Catolica de Chile. He is a
Civil Engineer and holds a BSc (Eng), both from Universidad de Concepcion, Chile. He is interested in the
interaction of transport demand modelling with psychological and social factors.
Alejandro Tudela is an Associate Professor, working at the Civil Engineering Department, Universidad de
Concepcion, Chile. He lectures on transport engineering and planning, modelling of travel demand, and
transport economics. He is a Civil Engineer and holds a BSc (Eng), both from Universidad de Chile, Chile.
He has an MA (Transport Economics) and PhD from University of Leeds, UK. His interest areas are demand
modelling, the use of Stated Preferences to model demand and for the evaluation of environmental assets,
and multi criteria methods.
Angelica Gonzalez is an Associate Professor, working at the Psychology Department, Universidad de
Concepcion, Chile. She teaches social psychology matters. She is a Psychologist and has a PhD in
Psychology, both from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain. She works in the Talentos Programme,
an extracurricular academic course oriented to gifted school students. Her research interest areas are
different psychosocial processes: norm fulfilment, emotional facial expressions recognition, emotional
situations, and social bases of power and regional social identity.

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