The influence of personality traits on airport public transport access mode choice: A hybrid latent class choice modeling approach

Many objective and subjective factors affect individual tendencies. Such subjective factors include personality traits, attitudes, identities, perceptions, and feelings. The choice of transportation mode is an individual tendency that is considered important in policy-making decisions, and it can affect sustainable transportation, particularly in metropolitan areas. The present study's main aim is to determine the impact of the Big Five Personality Factors on individual preferences toward public transportation modes. We use data from a survey conducted in January and February of 2015 at Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKIA). Passengers were asked to indicate their preferred mode of transportation to access the IKIA and to respond to questions on the NEO Five-Factor Inventory. Based on 557 valid responses, hybrid discrete latent class modeling was conducted to understand the heterogeneity in the respondents' individual preferences regarding the Big Five Personality Factors and their preferences toward public modes of transportation. The results indicated that individuals who display neuroticism were more likely than the others to be concerned about carrying heavy luggage and about inclement weather conditions when using public transportation. In addition, interesting results indicated that conscientious individuals likely paid more attention to travel cost than to any other attribute of public transportation, and the model of the conscientious latent personality trait was a better fit to the data. Finally, this paper examined the taste heterogeneity of each personality trait and the results indicate the usefulness of considering personality traits in mode choice models for richer insights toward sustainable transportation.