Does a satisfying trip result in more future trips with that mode?

Previous studies have indicated that travel satisfaction, the way people perceive and evaluate their travel, can be affected by travel mode choice, travel-related attitudes and other trip characteristics. Since it can reasonably be assumed that people try to maximize their happiness and satisfaction, it can be assumed that people will (try to) choose a travel mode that gave them the highest travel satisfaction in previous trips. Hence, a cyclical process between travel mode choice and travel satisfaction might occur. In this paper we will, based on a structural equation modelling approach, analyze how travel satisfaction affects travel-related attitudes, one of the major explanatory variables of travel mode choice. Analyzing leisure trips of people (+ 1,400 respondents) residing within the city of Ghent (Belgium) indicates that the evaluation of a mode-specific trip positively affects the attitudes toward that mode, which in turn has an important positive effect on choosing that mode. This suggests that a cyclical process between mode choice and travel satisfaction occurs and that travel satisfaction should not only be regarded as an outcome of mode choice, but also as an (indirect) cause of mode choice