Transport mode choice in South East Asia: Investigating the relationship between transport users’ perception and travel behaviour in Johor Bahru, Malaysia

• Dittmar’s Material Possession Theory is a valuable theoretical framework for travel behaviour research.
• Symbolic and affective motives have significant influence on transport mode choice amongst users in Johor Bahru.
• Cultural drivers are important to better interpret the psychological influences of transport mode choice.

The worldwide increase in private car dependency poses a set of significant environmental, economic and social sustainability challenges that continue to undermine the urban quality of life. Rapid motorisation, particularly in South East Asia (SEA), has emerged as a global concern given the region’s cumulative population, rate of industrialisation, and large-scale urbanisation. Thus, there is a compelling need to enhance our understanding of the underlying dynamics of how people perceive and use transportation such that transport planning is better placed to address the current, unsustainable travel patterns in SEA. Despite this need, there has been relatively limited SEA-based research that has endeavoured to examine travel perceptions and transport mode choice from a non-instrumental perspective. This research redresses this deficit by investigating the relationship between transport users’ perceptions and travel behaviours within SEA, with a particular focus on psychosocial drivers of transport mode choice interfaced with more traditional instrumental measures.Spatially stratified survey data have been collected in a case study area, Johor Bahru, Malaysia, comprising users from different transport user groups. Employing regression modelling, drivers of individual’s travel behaviour are examined. Results highlight the merit in recognising the role of non-instrumental motives alongside instrumental motives to explain transport mode choice. We conclude by highlighting that transport mode choices are motivated by a range of locational, socio-demographic, psychological and cultural determinants. The current research has contributed to a better understanding of transport mode choice in Johor Bahru and provides a foundation for future SEA-based travel behaviour research. Studies in this area can inform more sustainable travel behaviour in the SEA region.