ATTITUDE VERSUS GENERAL HABIT - ANTECEDENTS OF TRAVEL MODE CHOICE

A model of travel mode choice is tested by means of a survey among 199 inhabitants of a village. Car choice behavior for a particular journe y is predicted from the attitude toward choosing the car and the attit ude toward choosing an alternative mode (i.e., train), on the one hand , and from general car habit, on the other hand. Unlike traditional me asures of habit, a script-based measure was used. General habit was me asured by travel mode choices in response to very global descriptions of imaginary journeys. In the model, habit is predicted from the degre e of involvement with the decision-making about travel mode choice for the particular journey (decisional involvement) and from the degree o f competition in a household with respect to car use. The model proves satisfactory. Moreover, as suggested by Triandis (1977), there is a t radeoff between attitude and habit in the prediction of behavior: When habit is strong the attitude-behavior relation is weak, whereas when habit is weak, the attitude-behavior link is strong.