Transport-related lifestyle and environmentally-friendly travel mode choices: A multi-level approach

This paper introduces a deductive cognitive approach to, and a new instrument for measuring, transport-related lifestyle (TRL) and presents a first application of the instrument for identifying national and cross-national transport-related lifestyle segments based on a survey (N = 3216) in 10 European countries. Principal component analysis is used to reduce the TRL instrument's 69 items to 18 dimensions within five lifestyle components. Based on multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, it is found that the instrument possesses metric, but not scalar (measurement) invariance across the 10 countries. Multilevel latent class analysis is used to classify participants to TRL segments and to classify the 10 countries into groups with similar segment structure. The final solution has six TRL segments and two country classes, which are profiled in terms of relevant background characteristics. Finally, a multivariate GLM analysis reveals that three behavioral tendencies of importance for transport-related environmental impacts vary significantly and substantially between lifestyle segments: vehicle ownership, everyday travel-mode choice and environmentally-friendly transport innovativeness. Further, when differences in transport-related lifestyles are controlled, country (cluster) of residence as well as the interaction between lifestyle and country (cluster) of residence also influence these three behavioral tendencies. In conclusion, the usefulness of transport-related lifestyle segmentation as a tool for transport planners and campaigners is discussed.