Linking Individuals' Affective and Instrumental Motives to Their Car Use: An Application of an Integrated Choice and Latent Variable Model

Car mobility in cities differs from that in suburban or rural areas, as there usually exist alternative
modes such as public transit. Nevertheless, people own and use their cars. In addition to hard
factors such as sociodemographics, motives play a particularly important role in urban areas. In
the context of this study, we would like to examine the influence of soft factors on car use. This
leads to our research question: what influence do the affective and instrumental motives have on
the use frequency of cars? The data set used in this study was collected in Berlin and San Francisco.
The respondents have provided insights on their everyday travel (e.g., use frequency of cars) and
motives for car use. To investigate influences of motives, we applied motives into an integrated
choice and latent variable model (ICLV) with an ordered probit kernel. The results indicate a high
added value by integrating these soft factors. We can explain more of the overall heterogeneity
and can give further insights to the decision-making process. Results show a high influence of the
affective motive, whereby the instrumental motive does not matter. ... mehrConsidering the direct and
indirect effects, we see that the influence of gender comes almost exclusively by the affective
motive. Results suggest people are more likely to use cars for affective motives despite the city's
adversities. For these people it is difficult to achieve a shift to alternative means of transport. The
only way to intervene here is through regulatory intervention