Users of Different Travel Modes Differ in Journey Satisfaction and Habit Strength but Not Environmental Worldviews: a Large-scale Survey of Drivers, Walkers, Bicyclists and Bus Users Commuting to a Uk University

People who travel to the same university workplace by bicycle, bus, car, and walking were compared in a survey (N=1609). Data are presented on environmental worldviews, journey affective appraisals, and habit strength. Unexpectedly, findings showed comparable levels of environmental worldview across modes. This might reflect the role of attitudes on behaviour, or question the validity of the established environmental worldview scale used here. Results also replicated previous work on affective appraisal, and suggested that whilst walking, bicycling and bus use have distinctive affective appraisals associated with each mode, car driving was affectively neutral, generating no strong response on any dimension – a finding tentatively explained with reference to the normative status of driving. The survey also showed users of active travel modes reported stronger habit strength than car or public transport users, with possible links to the role of affect in formulating habit strength in line with habit theory. Introduction Research on travel mode choice largely aims to understand why people travel as they do so that they might be influenced towards healthier and more sustainable patterns of behaviour. As car users are the group practitioners would most like to influence, research on travel motives has primarily focused on understanding this group. Studies have covered such areas as qualitative motivations for car use (Gardner & Abraham, 2007), car users’ satisfaction (Ellaway, Macintyre, Hiscock, & Kearns, 2003), symbolic and affective motives for car use (Steg, 2005), and whether a taxonomy of car users can