Modelling the influence of peers’ attitudes on choice behaviour: theory and empirical application on electric vehicle preferences
File(s)Manca_et_al_TRA_FinalV.pdf (1.4 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Manca, Francesco
Sivakumar, Aruna
Daina, Nicolo
Axsen, Jonn
Polak, John
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
While the importance of social influence on transport-related choices is commonly acknowledged within the transport and travel behaviour research community, there remain several challenges in modelling influence in practice. This paper proposes a new analytical approach to measure the effects of attitudes of peers on the decision making process of the individual. Indeed, while most of the previous literature focused its attention on capturing conformity to a certain real or hypothetical choice, we investigate the subtle effect of attitudes that underlies this choice. Specifically, the suggested measure enables us to model the correlated effect that might indirectly affect the individual’s choice within a social group. It combines detailed information on the attitudes in the individual’s social network and the social proximity of the individuals in the social network. To understand its behavioural implications on the individual’s choice, the individual’s peer attitude variable is tested in different components of a hybrid choice model. Our results show that the inclusion of this variable indirectly affects the decision making process of the individual as the peers’ attitudes are significantly related to the latent attitude of the individual. On the other hand, it does not seem to directly affect the utility of an alternative as a source of systematic heterogeneity nor does it work as a manifestation of the latent variable, i.e. as an indicator.
Date Issued
2020-10
Date Acceptance
2020-08-23
Citation
Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2020, 140, pp.278-298
ISSN
0191-2607
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
278
End Page
298
Journal / Book Title
Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice
Volume
140
Copyright Statement
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Identifier
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856420306984?via%3Dihub
Subjects
1205 Urban and Regional Planning
1507 Transportation and Freight Services
Logistics & Transportation
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2020-09-10