pro-environmental attitude and adherence to a travel mode in an integrated choice and latent variable (iclv) model: results from a revealed preference survey

Attitudes and behavior have significant impacts on different choices, including the travel mode choice. identifying factors influencing the travel mode choice, specifically the attitudinal and behavioral variables, is essential to have a sustainable transportation system. however, it has received limited attention in a developing country like iran. this paper aims to identify the influential factors in travel mode choice through an integrated choice and latent variable (iclv) model, an approach to bring subjective factors to discrete choice models. using a sample of 544 citizens in the central business district (cbd) of tehran, iran—as a case study—the direct and interaction effects of exploratory and latent variables were investigated on the utility of travel modes. a series of potential latent variables were presented, and those more relevant in terms of exploratory power were identified. based on revealed preference (rp) data, environmental concerns and adherence to a travel mode were the two latent variables identified through a self-completion questionnaire. it is hypothesized that travel time and walking time are respectively interacted with adherence to a travel mode and pro-environmental attitudes as two latent variables. the pro-environmental attitudes positively affect the utility of subway and walking modes, and this preference even increases with the walking time in the walking mode. concerning the other latent variable, the utilities of private cars and taxis are positively correlated with the adherence to a travel mode, and in longer trips, the utility improves for taxis. the pro-environmental attitudes in subway and walking modes is triple that of adherence to private car and taxi. the preference of walking amongst public transport users (bus and subway) is about two and a half times that of longer travel time of private car and taxi users. according to the results, middle-aged people (45 to 64 years of age) are more restricted in their travel mode while older adults (over the age of 65) are double less pro-environmental. moreover, people with higher education (bachelor and higher) are more pro-environmental. © 2022, iran university of science and technology.