CAN PUBLIC TRANSPORT COMPETE WITH THE PRIVATE CAR

By L. Steg. 2003

248 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Public transport is often perceived to be a poor alternative for car use. This paper describes who may be open to use public transport more often, and how people might be persuaded to use it. A computerised questionnaire study was conducted among 1,803 Dutch respondents in May 2001. Results revealed that especially fervent car users disliked public transport. For them, the car outperformed public transport not only because of its instrumental function, but also because the car represents cultural and psychological values, e.g. the car is a symbol of freedom and independence, a status symbol and driving is pleasurable. So, for fervent car users, car use is connected with various important values in modern society. Infrequent car users judged less positively about the car and less negatively about public transport. Consequently, they may be open to use public transport more regularly. In contrast, many efforts are needed to stimulate fervent car users to travel by public transport, because in their view, public transport cannot compete with their private car. In this case, policies should be aimed at reducing the functional, psychological and cultural values of private cars, as well as increasing the performance of public transport and other (more) environmentally sound modes of transport on these aspects.

Subfields: Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality, Transportation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/633b122499d584ffd6fcced20cf517bf96745d3a

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In Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality

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Citations in the corpus

An Integrated Framework for Encouraging Pro-environmental Behaviour: The role of values, situational factors and goals (2014, background): “convenient, slower and less pleasurable than travelling by car (Steg, 2003).”
General Beliefs and the Theory of Planned Behavior: The Role of Environmental Concerns in the TPB (2007, background): “That is, compared to public transportation (and possibly transferia), the car has many personal advantages, such as freedom, comfort, status, and convenience, which may be evaluated as more important than the environmental consequences associated with car use (Steg, 2003).”
The Significance of Hedonic Values for Environmentally Relevant Attitudes, Preferences, and Actions (2014, background): “Previous studies revealed that individuals believe that car use has many instrumental as well as affective advantages (Steg, 2003, 2005), and that the purchase and use of cars is positively associated with egoistic values (see, for example, De Groot & Steg, 2007, 2008, 2010).”
Normative, Gain and Hedonic Goal Frames Guiding Environmental Behavior (2007, background): “Steg (2005) reports that both social norms and affect were related to commuter car-use, while”
The relationship between instrumental, symbolic and affective factors as predictors of car use: A structural equation modeling approach (2009, background): “It has been verified that the practical aspects of cars are more positively valued than those of public transportation (Mackett, 2003; Steg, 2003).”