01557820

Component

Understanding car purchase motivations among young people is an important problem as car ownership is increasing in many developing countries and finding ways to control such developments appears difficult. The authors focus their analysis on the understanding of the influence of expectations of others to buy a car (EOTBC) on car purchase intentions of students. In an initial study with data from seven countries, the authors found correlation between a numbers of factors, including expectation of others, with car ownership intentions. In order to explicitly model unobserved heterogeneity and estimate the model efficiently, the authors construct a series of ordered hybrid choice models (OHCM), focusing on exploring the role of EOTBC in different countries. The authors find that EOTBC appears to significantly influence the likelihood to buy a car in the future. The authors do find that in general students rate the perceived expectations of parents highest, closely followed by perceived expectations from peers. The authors' OHCM suggests further that the influence of peers on their construct EOTBC is highest among all groups. In country specific models the authors find though that for U.S. students from Berkeley expectations appear to be more important for purchase intentions, whereas Dutch students from Utrecht appear to resist expectations. The authors discuss the connection of their EOTBC construct with social norm concepts, highlight the need to make young people firstly aware of the expectations they face, if one wants to reduce car ownership. Finally, the authors suggest that expectations of others should be addressed in soft policy measures such as “mobility management”.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADB10 Traveler Behavior and Values.

01550057

15-3991

English

21p

2015

Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Automobile ownership; Choice models; Mobility; Peer groups; Psychological aspects; Social factors; Students

Berkeley (California); Utrecht (Netherlands)

Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Vehicles and Equipment; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I90: Vehicles

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2015 Paper #15-3991

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 30 2014 1:18PM