What drives leisure travel decisions? Exploring contextual, instrumental and psychological aspects of student's choices related to fun shopping in the city centre of Hasselt

Abstract

The rising need for leisure activities in developed countries over the past four decades raised the number of trips generated by this pastime (Kiiskilä & Kalenoja 2001; Schlich et al. 2004). In order to reduce travel related energy consumption caused by leisure trips and to lower pressure on urban infrastructure, many attempts have been made to enforce Travel Demand Management measures (TDMs) that would influence travel behaviour of individuals towards a more sustainable form (Gärling et al. 2002; Loukopoulos & Scholz 2004; Stauffacher et al. 2005). However, TDMs can be implemented in more effective and more efficient manners if these policies connect with contextual, instrumental and evaluative factors that affect the actual decision process of people when making a trip. Thus, to increase the behavioural impact of TDMs, travel choices should be studied on a disaggregate level, as the outcome of each individual's decision process (Stauffacher et al. 2005; Dellaert, Arentze & Timmermans 2008). The aim of this study therefore is to develop a better understanding of individual's mental representation of the different components involved in leisure travel decisions.