Individual psychological traits and urban travel behavior

Abstract: In this paper, we illustrate the results of an on-going research aiming to investi- gate whether there is a significant causal relationship between the psychological characteristics of transport service users and travel mode decision-making in cities. We have taken Palermo as case study, where a pilot survey has been conducted to collect psychometric data on travellers’ perceptions and attitudes along with stated preference mode choice observations concerning systematic mobility. About 150 individuals have been interviewed and we have analysed the resulting dataset through mode choice modelling and factor analysis. We have found out that, in addition to traditional cost and bene t attributes, urban travel behaviour is influenced also by individual perceptions and attitudes regarding some qualitative aspects of transport like flexibility, comfort, safety and its symbolic-affective nature. Moreover, age, gender, working condition and the number of young children have proved to be significant explanatory factors of respondents’ psychological pro les. This rst study supports the assumption that individual latent preferences do play a role in mode choice behaviour inside urban areas and has pointed out useful suggestions for a future re ned investigation of the subject