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Travel demand models focus on explaining how much individuals actually travel but offer no insight into how much individuals think they travel. The authors propose that the latter is an important determinant of traveler behavior, and that actual mobility is refracted through a variety of filters that magnify or diminish those subjective evaluations of travel amounts. Linear regression models of subjective mobility measures provided by 1,358 San Francisco Bay Area commuters were estimated earlier; the focus of this article is on identifying the potential cognitive and affective mechanisms that influence subjective mobility upward or downward, after controlling for objective mobility. The authors find three major types of mechanisms: awareness-heightening, affective, and comparison-inducing. Recurring patterns of effects in these three categories are analyzed in the light of psychological and marketing research concepts including the availability heuristic, social comparison, relative deprivation, autobiographical memory, and motivation theory.

Abstract: Using structural equation modeling, the relationships among travel amounts, perceptions, affections, and desires across five short-distance (one-way trips of less than 100 miles) travel categories (overall, commute, work/school-related, entertainment/social/recreation, and personal vehicle) are examined. The models are estimated using data collected in 1998 from more than 1300 working commuters in the San Francisco Bay Area. A cross-model analysis reveals three robust relationships, namely: (1) myriad measures of travel amounts work together to affect perceptions; (2) perceptions are consistently important in shaping desires; and (3) affections have a positive relationship with desires. The second finding suggests that two individuals who travel the same objective amount may not have the same desire to reduce their travel: how much individuals perceive their travel to be is important. The third point argues that the degree to which travel is enjoyed is a key determinant of shaping desires to reduce travel: the more travel is enjoyed, the less the desire to reduce it. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Travel demand models focus on explaining how much individuals actually travel but offer no insight into how much individuals think they travel. The authors propose that the latter is an important determinant of traveler behavior, and that actual mobility is refracted through a variety of filters that magnify or diminish those subjective evaluations of travel amounts. Linear regression models of subjective mobility measures provided by 1,358 San Francisco Bay Area commuters were estimated earlier; the focus of this article is on identifying the potential cognitive and affective mechanisms that influence subjective mobility upward or downward, after controlling for objective mobility. The authors find three major types of mechanisms: awareness-heightening, affective, and comparison-inducing. Recurring patterns of effects in these three categories are analyzed in the light of psychological and marketing research concepts including the availability heuristic, social comparison, relative deprivation, autobiographical memory, and motivation theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]