An Empirical Analysis of Mode Choice Decision for Utilitarian and Hedonic Trips: Evidence from Iran

A sizeable body of literature reveals a strong relationship between mode choice and health status. Therefore, society would benefit from travel if transportation and urban planners motivated more individuals to satisfy their desire for travel by active transportation rather than motorized transportation. Despite rich existing literature about the relations between the built environment and travel, we still need to address some research gaps in explaining travel mode choice. As a shortcoming, identifying and measuring the primary motivations for trips, and then incorporating such motivations into travel mode choice modelling, has received less attention in previous research. In this regard the current paper follows two main goals. It aims to differentiate between trips by determining the main utility of travelers and then analyzes the impact of the built environment measurements and subjective attributes on mode choice decision. Using data from a survey of 515 participants who reside in Isfahan, Iran, we conducted a series of binary logistic models to explore how the built environment influences mode choice decisions for different trips, controlling for socio-economics and subjective attributes. The results show that the number of hedonic trips were sizably more than utilitarian trips. It was found that travel mode choice for utilitarian and hedonic trips is influenced by travel habits and subjective attitudes, but the built environment also matters. Specifically, two built environment characteristics, including density and diversity, can substitute walking/cycling for driving for utilitarian trips. In addition, car use for hedonic trips is not influenced by built environment measurements. It seems that the utility and desire of hedonic driving depends on mode of travel. It is concluded that driving and walking/biking for hedonic and utilitarian trips are not single behaviors and differentiating between trips according to their main utility and considering both objective and subjective attributes helps urban and transportation planners prescribe appropriate spatial and nonspatial strategies to encourage walking/biking.