Mobility Styles and Car Ownership—Potentials for a Sustainable Urban Transport

Miriam Magdolen, Sascha von Behren, Lukas Burger and Bastian Chlond
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Miriam Magdolen: Institute for Transport Studies, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany
Sascha von Behren: Institute for Transport Studies, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany
Lukas Burger: Institute for Transport Studies, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany
Bastian Chlond: Institute for Transport Studies, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 5, 1-18

Abstract: Decision-makers in cities worldwide have the responsibility to contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in urban transport. Therefore, effective measures and policies that allow for a change in people’s mobility towards sustainable mobility must be derived. To understand how different people respond to measures and policies, and to increase the effectiveness of such policies, individual mobility needs and mobility determinants have to be considered. For this, the definition of individual mobility styles as holistic descriptions considering travel behavior, attitudes, as well as life stages is useful. This study presents a segmentation approach that identifies eight urban mobility styles by using data from a multidimensional survey conducted in Berlin and San Francisco. We applied a cluster analysis with both behavioral and attitudinal characteristics as segmentation criteria. By analyzing the characteristics, we identified a mobility style—the Environmentally Oriented Multimodals—that is environmentally oriented, but not yet all people in this cluster are sustainable in their mobility. Thus, they are the group with the highest potential to accept and use sustainable mobility. Additionally, we found that within the Environmentally Oriented Multimodals, the change from one life stage to another is also likely to be accompanied by a car acquisition.

Keywords: mobility styles; travel skeleton; attitudes; travel behavior; sustainable urban mobility; life stages; car ownership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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