What type of vehicle do people drive? The role of attitude and lifestyle in influencing vehicle type choice

Sangho Choo and Patricia Mokhtarian

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2004, vol. 38, issue 3, 201-222

Abstract: Traditionally, economists and market researchers have been interested in identifying the factors that affect consumers' car buying behaviors to estimate market share, and to that end they have developed various models of vehicle type choice. However, they do not usually consider consumers' travel attitudes, personality, lifestyle, and mobility as factors that may affect the vehicle type choice. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship of such factors to individuals' vehicle type choices, and to develop a disaggregate choice model of vehicle type based on these factors as well as typical demographic variables. The data for this study comes from a 1998 mail-out/mail-back survey of 1904 residents in the San Francisco Bay Area. The dependent variable (the vehicle type the respondent drives most often) is classified into nine categories: small, compact, mid-sized, large, luxury, sports, minivan/van, pickup, and sport utility vehicle. Based on these categories, we first related vehicle type to travel attitude, personality, lifestyle, mobility, and demographic variables individually, using one-way analysis of variance and chi-squared tests. Then, a multinomial logit model for vehicle type choice was estimated. The final model (which possessed the IIA property) confirmed that the variables analyzed significantly affect an individual's vehicle type choice. These results provide useful background not only to vehicle manufacturers, but also to decision makers and planners of transportation policy related to vehicle ownership, traffic congestion, and energy consumption.

Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (117)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965-8564(03)00096-X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: What type of vehicle do people drive? The role of attitude and lifestyle in influencing vehicle type choice (2004)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:transa:v:38:y:2004:i:3:p:201-222

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice is currently edited by John (J.M.) Rose

More articles in Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().