A panel data switching regression model of mobility and car ownership

The objective of this paper is to present a panel data model of car ownership and mobility. Unobserved heterogeneity is controlled for by including correlated random effects in the equations describing car ownership and mobility. A mass-points approach is adopted to control for unobserved heterogeneity. The results show that decisions concerning the first car in the household are difficult to affect; a large number of households are inclined to keep one car. Second car ownership may be more sensitive to changes in the observed contributing factors. This suggests that in The Netherlands policies aimed at changing second car ownership will be more successful than those aimed at influencing decisions concerning the first car in households. A major part of the correlation between the unobservables in the car ownership and the mobility equations is attributable to random effects. The time-variant errors of the mobility equations are not significantly correlated to car ownership decisions. This implies that mobility can only be influenced to a small extent by policy makers without measures aimed at reducing (second) car ownership.