Normative beliefs and modality styles: a latent class and latent variable model of travel behaviour

We study the interrelation of normative beliefs, which are an individual’s perception of the beliefs of others regarding a specific behaviour, and modality styles, which represent the part of an individual’s lifestyle that is characterised by the use of a certain set of modes. In recent years, travel behaviour research has increasingly sought to understand the effect of social influence on mobility-related behaviour. One stream of literature has adopted representations rooted in social psychology to explain behaviour as a function of latent psycho-social constructs including normative beliefs. Another stream of literature has employed a lifestyle-oriented approach to identify segments or modality styles within a population that differ in terms of their orientation towards different modes of transport. Our study proposes an integrated conceptual framework that combines elements of these two streams of literature. Modality styles are hypothesised to be a function of normative beliefs towards the use of different modes of transport; mobility-related attitudes and behaviours are in turn hypothesised to be functions of modality styles. The conceptual model is operationalised using a latent class and latent variable model and empirically validated using data collected through an Australian consumer panel. We demonstrate how this integrated model framework may be used to understand the relationship between normative beliefs, modality styles and travel behaviour. In addition, we show how the model can be applied to predict how extant modality styles and patterns of travel behaviour may change over time in response to concurrent shifts in normative beliefs.