Sustaining Multimodal Choices: Examining Travel Behavior for Non-work Trips Beyond COVID-19

Travel by sustainable modes such as public transit, biking, and walking provides positive outcomes for urban residents for the environment and health. Integrating these mode choices into regular travel trips has been challenging for many Americans. The low adoption of sustainable travel modes has been attributed to environmental factors, and to attitudinal and habitual tendencies rooted in an individual’s beliefs and experiences. The proposed project focuses on understanding the decision-making process of travel mode choices for non-commuting trips. It addresses the policy issue of how to increase usage of sustainable travel modes for those trips through environmental and psychological approaches. At the center of this study are two research questions: 1. What are the barriers to urban residents’ adoption of sustainable travel modes for non-commuting trips? 2. What are the factors and processes that help mitigate those barriers’ influences on individuals’ choice of a sustainable travel mode? The research team builds on a survey deployed during the COVID-19 lockdown in the Eugene-Springfield, Oregon region to implement a mixed-method, longitudinal study. The team treats the significant transportation disruption induced by the COVID-19 lockdown as an intervention. The team examines: 1. changes in people’s travel mode choices as a reaction to the intervention; 2. changes in cognitive/psychological status in relation to the travel behavior change and the intervention; and 3. the combined effects of environmental and cognitive/psychological factors on people’s desire and reasons to maintain or suspend those behavior changes post intervention. Knowledge and insights gained from this project will contribute to our ability to understand and estimate future sustainable travel behavior, as well as inform infrastructure investment decisions and transportation demand management programming that deploy interventions related to both environmental and psychological dimensions.

• Record URL:
  https://nitc.trec.pdx.edu/research/project/1504

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $137841
• Contract Numbers:

  NITC-1504

  69A3551747112

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  TREC at Portland State University

  1900 SW Fourth Ave, Suite 175
  P.O. Box 751
  Portland, Oregon  United States  97201
• Performing Organizations:

  University of Oregon, Eugene

  Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management, 119 Hendricks Hall
  Eugene, OR  United States  97403-1209
• Principal Investigators:

  Yang, Yizhao

  Lewis, Rebecca

• Start Date: 20211001
• Expected Completion Date: 20221231
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Mode choice; Multimodal transportation; Psychological aspects; Service disruption; Surveys; Sustainable transportation; Travel behavior
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Transportation (General);

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01781405
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: National Institute for Transportation and Communities
• Contract Numbers: NITC-1504, 69A3551747112
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Sep 7 2021 10:34PM