The role of attitudes and public transport service on vehicle ownership in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

Empirical evidence suggests that urban form has a strong influence on travel behaviour. This finding, however, has been challenged by the debate on the confounding effects of subjective dimensions such as individual attitudes and preferences (the self-selection hypothesis). Residential self-selection has been found to significantly influence travel behaviour though the effects of land use remain important. Although people have more options than just residential choice to self-select, researchers have focused on residential self-selection only, mostly in the US. The paper examines the effects of attitudes and public transport service on household multiple vehicle ownership behaviour, controlled for socio-demographic and land use characteristics. This study contributes empirical results of Generalised Nested Logit models using large scale household interview survey data collected in Ho Chi Minh metropolitan area, Vietnam. The study finds that both subjective and objective dimensions of the built environment such as bus coverage, bus operators’ attitudes, walking and cycling conditions, and the diversity of land use at residential locations are important to multiple vehicle ownership behaviour while the effects of self-selection are relatively modest