Attitudes have been used as explanatory variables of travel behaviour for decades, typically under the assumption that there is a causal effect of attitudes on behaviour. However, recent research has shown that the relationship between attitudes and travel behaviour is bi-directional. In this study we use a longitudinal modelling technique on panel data to 1) separate within-person effects from between-person associations and 2) test whether the within-person effects changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that the within-person effects were weaker during the pandemic than they were before the pandemic. In addition, the within-person effects were much smaller than would be expected based on methods that do not separate within-person effects from between-person associations. This means that researchers should be careful when basing policy recommendations on cross-sectional correlations between attitudes and behaviour for two reasons: first, the problem of endogeneity, and second, the highly relevant separation of within-person effects from between-person relations.

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Air transportation is a mode of transport developed specifically to provide access to long-distance destinations that may otherwise be infeasible or at least more difficult to reach. Accordingly, there are distinct aspects of air travel that require consideration when assessing accessibility by air transportation, which are not addressed in general local accessibility studies. This paper reviews studies of accessibility by air transportation. The studies in question were published in academic journals, and we analysed them using the broad theoretical framework of accessibility of Geurs and van Wee [Accessibility evaluation of land-use and transport strategies: Review and research directions. Journal of Transport Geography, 12(2), 127–140]. We discuss the characteristics of accessibility by air transportation to consider when designing research, as well as trends and knowledge gaps in the existing literature. An important gap is that, while there is a growing interest towards perceived accessibility by air transportation, accessibility measures based on this perspective have not yet been applied yet. Additionally, the literature is largely focused on the transport and land-use components of accessibility as opposed to the individual and temporal components. We finish by discussing the benefits and drawbacks of directly applying conventional accessibility measures for research on accessibility by air transportation, as well as options to modify the temporal component of conventional person-based accessibility measures for better applicability in the air travel context.

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Free-floating (e-)moped sharing systems are becoming increasingly popular and provide new ways of travel in urban areas. The vehicles offer the flexibility of one-way transportation, though the downside for service providers of free-floating shared fleet systems is that their operations may result in a spatial-temporal imbalance of the vehicle distribution within the system. The potential effectiveness of user-based relocation strategies depend on the trade-offs users make between (reduced) ride fees and (prolonged) walking times. It is therefore essential to establish the trade-offs exercised by users in the context of moped sharing systems. We elicit travel preferences and assess how vehicle choice is influenced by user characteristics, travel context and alternative-specific attributes by means of a choice experiment. Our findings indicate that respondents in the Netherlands require a reduction of €0.02 of the ride fee for each additional walking minute required for accessing a vehicle. The application of our model demonstrates that vehicle availability, pricing, trip characteristics, and socioeconomic factors significantly drive adoption rates, emphasising the importance of understanding user preferences and thereby the factors shaping the acceptance and utilisation of e-moped sharing services. These findings offer essential implications for policymakers and operators, enabling them to tailor e-moped sharing services to diverse user segments as well as understanding the impact of policies, such as helmet mandates. The outcomes presented in this paper are likely to be applicable to other vehicle sharing systems with comparable design and management configurations.

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A plethora of shared fleet services have been introduced in cities worldwide. Despite their increased presence in urban areas, it is insofar unknown what are the main determinants of travellers’ choices between the usage of shared-mopeds and cars and thereby the extent to which shared moped can substitute car travel. To this end, we design and conduct an SP choice model experiment. The estimated Panel Mixed Logit model is applied to explore the potential market share for shared moped, car and bike under several scenarios which are devised based on the expert interviews. Our findings demonstrate that the return availability of shared moped is the most influential travel time attribute. Walk time from home to the shared moped is an influential factor for people without moped experience. Moreover, model estimation results show that people who have used a shared moped before value the attributes differently than people without previous moped experience. We specifically focus on choice determinants and policy measures targeting car users to facilitate desirable behavioural changes. We present results from model application to demonstrate the effect of different policy packages on the market share of each mode, showing that certain policy interventions can attract car users to switch to shared moped while avoiding a strong reduction in bike use.@en

Policies to increase the amount of time people spend working from home were widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since research suggests that the resulting increase in working from home will outlast these policies themselves, policymakers want to understand the relations between working from home and travel behaviour. We apply longitudinal modelling techniques to estimate the relations between working from home and travel behaviour using panel data from the Netherlands Mobility Panel spanning the years 2017 through 2021. This allows us to separate between-persons and within-persons relations and effects and to see whether these effects changed during the pandemic. We find a negative effect of working from home on commute travel time both before and during the pandemic and a positive effect on leisure travel time only before the pandemic. The sizes of these effects remained roughly similar during the pandemic, although the extent to which working from home affected commute travel time increased during the pandemic. The net effect of working from home on travel time is negative, indicating that working from home policies could be used to reduce travel time. The results also show that some of the relationships between working from home and travel behaviour have changed during the pandemic. As a result, policymakers and transport operators should be careful when estimating future travel demand based on extrapolations of relationships found only before or during the pandemic.@en

After several decades of decline, night train services have gained momentum in recent years. However, the willingness to use night trains as an alternative to airplane travel has so far received only limited research attention. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by presenting the results of a two-stage stated preferences survey comprising of a comfort rating experiment and a mode choice experiment, an approach that is based on Hierarchical Information Integration (HII) theory. Data are collected in 2019 from 804 travellers in the Netherlands. From these data, first, a multiple regression model is estimated which indicates which basic comfort variables influence perceived comfort. Second, a Panel Mixed Logit choice model is estimated which indicates how perceived comfort is traded-off against travel time and travel cost. We found that the level of comfort is an important determinant for traveling by night train, and in particular the number of persons a compartment is shared with, hence the ‘privacy’ aspect is important. The results can be used by rail operators to optimize the use of night train which may contribute to the substitution of air by rail travel for long-distance journeys in Europe and therefore contribute to a more sustainable transport system. Our study is also relevant for policy makers and employers because of the insights provided in these substitution factors, and because of the importance of this substitution for environmental and financial reasons.@en

In the Netherlands, as in many other densely populated countries, home delivery is the dominant way of delivering online ordered parcels. This is mainly because big retail companies offer this delivery option for free. Due to the expansion of e-commerce, home delivery that typically makes use of diesel vans puts increasing pressure on logistics service providers, their employees, traffic, and the environment. Increased use of service points or parcel lockers could relieve some of this pressure, but these delivery alternatives are barely used by Dutch consumers. The goal of this paper is to better understand how consumers can be stimulated to use pick-up points and in particular parcel lockers. To achieve this goal, a stated choice experiment was conducted among Dutch e-commerce consumers, in which they made choices between home delivery, service point, and parcel locker alternatives that systematically varied in costs, delivery moment, and distance. The application of the model to predict choices under a number of scenarios makes clear that even a small increase in home delivery costs together with an expansion of parcel lockers that decreases the distance to the parcel lockers, could severely reduce the choice for home delivery: home delivery is predicted to reduce from 71% to only 7%. This suggests that there is potential for breaking through the dominance of home delivery.@en

To inform policies aimed at more sustainable travel behaviour, previous research has investigated the concept of multimodality. The notion underlying this line of research is that increasing the degree of multimodality will lead to less car dependence and therefore more sustainable travel behaviour. This paper investigates multimodality by inferring modality styles and revealing their response to exogenous variation in the form of the weather. The main idea of this paper is that travellers with a more multimodal modality style are more sensitive to exogenous variation, and that they are therefore more likely to resort to the use of the car when ‘car-favouring’ conditions present themselves. The results show that the effects of weather conditions on mode choices do indeed differ between three modality styles. The identified modality styles can be summarised as (1) bike + car; (2) car mostly and (3) multimodal. For the third class, which has the highest degree of multimodality, the use of the sustainable modes is more strongly affected by weather conditions when compared to the first, less multimodal, class. The least multimodal second class meanwhile is least affected by a change in weather conditions. More multimodal travellers thus seem to be more susceptible to exogenous variation, which might prevent the formation of sustainable travel habits or patterns. Based on these results, the claim that a higher degree of multimodality will lead to more sustainable behaviour and that policy makers should aim to realise a shift towards more multimodal modality styles needs to be nuanced. Policy makers should instead focus directly on increasing the attractiveness of sustainable travel modes, which will inadvertently lead to more multimodal modality styles.

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Introduction Unlike previous pandemics, COVID-19 has sustained over a relatively longer period with cyclical infection waves and numerous variants. Public transport ridership has been hit particularly hard. To restore travellers' confidence it is critical to assess their risk determinants and trade-offs. Methods To this end, we survey train travellers in the Netherlands in order to: (i) quantify the impact of trip-specific, policy-based, and pandemic-related attributes on travellers' COVID-19 risk perceptions; and (ii) evaluate the trade-off between this risk perception and other travel attributes. Adopting the hierarchical information integration approach, in a two-stage stated preference experiment, respondents are asked to first rate how risky they perceive different travel situations to be, and then to choose between different travel options that include their own perceived risk rating as an attribute. Perceived risk ratings and choices between travel options are modelled using a linear regression and a mixed multinomial logit model, respectively. Results We find that on-board crowding and infection rates are the most important factors for risk perception. Amongst personal characteristics, the vulnerability of family and friends has the largest impact-nearly twice that of personal health risk. The bridging choice experiment reveals that while values of time have remained similar to pre-pandemic estimates, travellers are significantly more likely to choose routes with less COVID-19 risk (e.g., due to lower crowding). Respondents making longer trips by train value risk four times as much as their shorter trip counterparts. By combining the two models, we also report willingness to pay for mitigating factors: Reduced crowding, mask mandates, and increased sanitization. Conclusion Since we evaluate the impact of a large number of variables on route choice behaviour, we can use the estimated models to predict behaviour under detailed pandemic scenarios. Moreover, in addition to highlighting the importance of COVID-19 risk perceptions in public transport route choices, the results from this study provide valuable information regarding the mitigating impacts of various policies on perceived risk. @en

To minimize the risk of becoming infected by the Coronavirus while traveling by train, the national government and the Dutch railways' operator (NS) in the Netherlands have taken several policy measures. These involve that passengers have to wear masks and guidelines are issued for working at home and teaching online. In addition, other policy measures, such as introducing a reservation system, were considered. To examine to what extent train travelers support policy measures and how these change their perception of becoming infected while traveling by train, a stated preference experiment is conducted. Respondents were asked to evaluate various combinations of policy measures, both whether they consider it safe to travel by train under the stated conditions and whether they would vote in favor of the policy package in a referendum. To analyze the data, a mediation choice model is developed, which allows disentangling the direct effect of the policy measures on support and the indirect effect mediated by infection safety perception. To illustrate this, the results show that implementing the policy measure teaching on campus with later starting times would decrease travelers’ infection safety perception and therefore indirectly decrease its support. However, the positive direct effect on support suggests that travelers like this option better than teaching online, the guideline that applied at the time of data collection. The direct and indirect effects cancel each other out, indicating that this alternative policy measure would not count on more support than the guideline teaching online. Furthermore, this paper examines the heterogeneity in the support for policy measures by presenting and discussing the results of a Latent Class Choice Model. Amongst others, the results reveal that one class strongly supports the policy measure reservation system, while another class stongly opposes this measure, suggesting that implementing this measure is not trivial as suggested by its moderate effects at the aggregate level.@en

Residential self-selection (RSS) is the theoretical mechanism that explains that the impact of the built environment on travel behaviour is weaker than bivariate correlations suggest, because mode attitudes influence both the built environment and travel behaviour and therefore at least partially account for the bivariate relationship. Recently, the concept of travel-related reasons for residential choice has been introduced, which reflects the actual extent to which the travel-related characteristics of the built environment were considered during the relocation decision. In this paper, we hypothesize that travel-related location reasons are stronger predictors of the built environment choice than generic mode attitudes. This hypothesis is examined by estimating both a cross-sectional and a longitudinal Structural Equation Model using data gathered in the Netherlands. The results suggest that the travel-related location reasons are indeed stronger predictors for built environment location than travel mode attitudes and that the directions of causality between attitudes, travel-related location reasons, the built environment, and travel behaviour often run in both directions. Substantively, our findings indicate that public transport use is most strongly affected by the built environment (after controlling for both stated reasons and attitudes), while car and bicycle use are hardly affected. From a practical point of view, this suggests that transforming the built environment to be more friendly to public transport may increase the use of public transport, but that, at least in the Netherlands, such a strategy would not work well if the aim were to reduce car use or increase bicycle use.

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Public transport in rural areas is under pressure because demand is low and dispersed. To reduce costs, flexible and on-demand services are often proposed as alternatives for conventional bus services. Conventional services are generally not suitable for rural areas, because the demand is low and dispersed. In this paper, a stated preference survey is designed to identify the preferences of rural bus users for alternative services. Other than the traditional bus, two other modes are included in this study: a demand responsive transport (DRT) service and an express bus service with bike-sharing services for last mile transport. Given the on-demand nature of these alternatives, flexibility-and reliability-related attributes are included in the stated preference survey. The results from the choice model indicate that the reliability and flexibility aspects do not have a large effect on the preference for the on-demand alternatives. Instead, cost, access and egress times, and in-vehicle time play a bigger role in individuals’ preferences toward the different alternatives. A sensitivity analysis shows that changes in the operational characteristics can make the on-demand alternatives more attractive. However, many bus users still prefer the conventional bus service over the on-demand alternatives.@en

Tradable credits for congestion management are a novel policy concept that is receiving increased interest in transportation research. This interest is mainly driven by the belief that the concept can count on stronger social support and hence has a better prospect for implementation than charging-based instruments. This paper is the first to provide an analysis of the social, political, economic and technical feasibility of this concept. To this end, policymakers and researchers from the field of transport have been interviewed. The results reveal so many barriers and challenges in the social and political context that some seem insurmountable, which exposes a difference with expectations formulated in the literature. We reflect on possible options to overcome or avoid barriers but conclude that the concept of tradable peak credits lies very far from the current way of thinking about road use and seems unable to compete with more established charging schemes.

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Congestion charging is generally regarded as an effective tool to manage the ongoing growth in road use and to abate congestion. However, public support is typically very low and therefore very few charging schemes have been implemented. The concept of tradable peak credits (TPC), which is based on the cap-and-trade principle, has characteristics that are believed to lead to more public support. First, a TPC system is revenue-neutral since the money circulates within the user group. Also, the expected effectiveness, and thereby support, may be higher because, in a TPC system, the operator has more control over the inflow of cars due to the firm cap. Lastly, the allocation of free credits provides the opportunity to address equity issues. This paper aims to quantify the levels of support for TPC among the public and to explore what the influence of scheme design, personal characteristics and attitudes is on these levels of support. To that end, a stated choice experiment has been conducted in which respondents were asked whether they would vote for the implementation of different TPC schemes. The discrete choice model shows that 32%, and up to a small majority of 52%, would support different TPC schemes. Most people, however, like or dislike TPC regardless of the scheme design. It is attitudes, and to a limited extent also socio-demographics, that relate to someone's level of support, rather than the scheme characteristics. Support is especially higher among people who find TPC fair and effective, who live outside the borders of the municipality and are lower educated. Although the results indicate that a small majority would support a TPC scheme, directions for future research are given to supplement this study.

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Congestieheffing is efficiënt in het bestrijden van files, maar wekt veel weerstand op bij met name automobilisten aangezien het spitsritten duurder maakt. Daarentegen is het belonen van automobilisten voor het mijden van de spits geen langdurige oplossing, maar dat wordt wel overwegend positief ontvangen. De volgende vraag rijst daarom op: biedt het concept van verhandelbare spitscredits ‘the best of both worlds’ waardoor het niet alleen gesteund wordt door automobilisten maar ook door het bredere publiek? Dit artikel is gebaseerd op een deel van het proefschrift ‘Tradable Credits for Congestion Management: support/reject?’ dat de publieke steun voor verhandelbare spitscredits heeft onderzocht. Door middel van verschillende (kwalitatieve en kwantitatieve) methoden worden meningen en steun voor verhandelbare spitscredits in kaart gebracht en vergeleken met steun voor een conventionele congestieheffing. De onderzoeken laten zien dat de publieke steun voor verhandelbare spitscredits vergelijkbaar is met die voor een spitsheffing. Steun voor de spitscredits stijgt wel aanzienlijk tot 52%, afhankelijk van het beleidsontwerp. Dit artikel sluit af met aanbevelingen voor verder onderzoek en voor beleid. @en

Congestion is threatening the accessibility and liveability of urban regions. Cities are usually hesitant to consider the effective, yet controversial idea of congestion pricing as a measure to abate the growing economic and environmental problems. In the longstanding search for an effective and acceptable pricing scheme, there has been an increased interest in tradable credits. Compared to charging instruments, this novel concept has the theoretical advantage that it can better address equity issues while effectively reducing congestion. Although one may argue that tradable peak credits (TPC) lead to higher public acceptability, very few empirical studies have researched this. Therefore, this study explores attitudes towards TPC using five focus groups with Dutch citizens. The participants were confronted with a hypothetical city where two instruments were suggested: peak charge (PC) and TPC. Most participants preferred PC and only two participants supported TPC while opposing PC. The advantages as addressed in literature played minor roles in the discussions. Participants revealed a sceptical attitude towards TPC or were more convinced about PC. Contrary to expectations, the attitudes became more negative as the discussions developed. Based on these insights, we propose directions for future research to assist the search for an acceptable congestion pricing instrument.

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A deep understanding of people's support for road pricing may help policymakers to design more practical pricing schemes that are effective in abating congestion but lead to less public opposition. This study adds to the rich body of road pricing acceptability literature by taking a different approach that focuses on the underlying pattern of the arguments, beliefs and attitudes, which largely determine the viewpoint of individuals with respect to road pricing. We apply Q-methodology to find these viewpoints by asking respondents to rank order subjective arguments that are subtracted from the public debate on road pricing and to identify shared viewpoints that are called frames. Analysis revealed four frames: The polluter should pay, Focus on fair alternatives, What's in it for me? and Don't interfere. Only the Polluter should pay frame is positive about road pricing. The other three frames are negative about road pricing, which suggests that there is not just one single block of citizens opposed to road pricing, but that quite different arguments are used in the various frames. We discuss how these frames can be used by policy-makers that intend to implement road pricing, to fine-tune the design, communication and implementation process of road pricing schemes.

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Many studies about conducting activities while traveling start from the hypothesis that conducting onboard activities reduces the value of time (VoT). However, surprisingly limited empirical evidence is provided for this hypothesis. The few studies that aim at providing this evidence face methodological problems in the sense that effects attributed to conducting onboard activities are confounded with differences between groups. This paper further develops and applies a solution for this problem proposed by Wardman and Lyons (2016). In essence, this method includes constructing a within-person choice experiment, which involves that the same respondents make choices in a context that enables conducting activities, as well as in a context that does not enable conducting activities. This method is applied in a study that collected data from 820 train travelers in the Netherlands. The results show that as expected, the VoT in the activity context is significantly lower than the VoT in the non-activity context, which thus supports the hypothesis. Reduction in VoT due to conducting onboard activities is around 30% for commuters, while leisure travelers who prefer to read lose almost half their VoT value. In addition, this paper discusses how the estimated VoT reduction values can be interpreted as the Value of Activity (VoA), which can be used for appraising investments aimed at reducing the disutility of travel other than by means of reducing travel time, such as improving Internet connections.

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Public transport in rural areas is under pressure because demand is low and dispersed. To reduce costs, flexible and on-demand services are often proposed as alternatives for conventional bus services. Conventional services are generally not suitable for rural areas, because the demand is low and dispersed. In this paper, a stated-preference survey is designed in order to identify the preferences of rural bus users for alternative services. Other than the traditional bus, two other modes are included in our study: a demand responsive transport (DRT) service and an express bus service with bike-sharing services for last mile transport. Given the on-demand nature of these alternatives, we include flexibility and reliability related attributes in the stated preference survey. The results from the choice model indicate that the reliability and flexibility aspects do not have a large effect on the preference of the on-demand alternatives. Instead, cost, access and egress times, and in-vehicle time play a bigger role in individuals' preferences towards the different alternatives. A sensitivity analysis shows that changes in the operational characteristics can make the on-demand alternatives more attractive. However, still a large number of bus users prefers the conventional bus service over the on-demand alternatives.@en

The promise of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) is that it decreases the need to own a car and contributes to a more sustainable transport system. However, MaaS also offers relatively easy access to car-based travel alternatives which may result in substituting public transport trips by car trips. An important question therefore is: Which type of traveler is going to adopt MaaS and which impact is this going to have on their mode choices? This paper explores this question by presenting the results of a stated choice experiment conducted in the Netherlands. Travelers are presented with MaaS bundles that vary in accessibility to transport services and price and they respond to a range of questions about bundle adoption, change in transport mode, and willingness to shed one or more cars. The results suggest that if MaaS bundles are given for free to the travelers, this has the potential to change their frequency of mode use. For example, if the MaaS bundel includes unlimited bus, tram and metro (BTM), even travelers who solely use car will then use BTM more. However, realizing this potential is not very likely, because when travelers have to pay for MaaS, adoption rates are rather low, in particular of those who use car the most. In addition, the willingness of car owners to shed their cars is very low, suggesting that currently MaaS is not conceived as a viable alternative for car-ownership. On the other hand, current public travelers seem most interested in MaaS and results indeed as expected suggest that this increases their car use. Overall, the trends reported in this paper adds to a growing insight that MaaS' contribution to sustainability may be smaller than generally believed.

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