2015 Volume 11 Pages 1522-1534
Recent literature of travel behaviour studies showed that travellers' motivation to use transport mode was considered in two motives which are self-interest motive and pro-environmental motive. In addition, a common finding in comparing the two motives was that travellers rely more on self-interest motive than pro-environmental motive to decide travel behaviour. However, the practice of transportation management showed that increasing public transportation ridership by improving travellers' self-interest motivation (e.g., advantages of public transportation) is not an easy task. Therefore, it is necessary to focus more on travellers' pro-environmental motivation which is likely an easier-to-implement solution for increasing public transportation ridership. A notable revision work of the present study suggested that travellers' pro-environmental motivation in deciding travel behaviour may change accordingly to trip characteristics. In particular, a hypothesis was made that the role of environmental motivation in deciding bus use intention is weaker regarding more-frequent trips and greater regarding less-frequent trips. As a result, an empirical study conducted in Saitama city, Japan showed support to the hypothesis, suggesting that environment-based interventional policies to increase bus ridership probably work better in cases of less-frequent trips such as trips to social events and trips for dining.
