Investigation of safety attitude on passenger vehicle type choice: An integrated choice and latent variable (ICLV) approach

Passenger Vehicle Type Choice (PVTC) has an undeniable impact on crash severity and costs. To estimate that, one must carefully consider subjective factors as well as objective ones. Ignoring the role of subjective variables can cause bias in the estimation of the effective variables' coefficients. The present paper investigates the impact of safety attitude, transportation attitude, and lifestyle on PVTC in a bi-level structure. To do so, we used the data from 633 face-to-face interviews conducted in Iran. The passenger vehicles investigated in this study are divided into five categories according to their weight and safety performance: mini, compact, medium, large, and sport utility vehicles (SUVs). In the analysis of the mentioned structure, the Integrated Choice and Latent Variables (ICLV) approach is utilized. One of the important findings of the current study the significant influence of subjective variables on PVTC. Since subjective variables have an indirect effect on the decision variable, ignoring them will lead to biased estimates. For instance, aging in consumers increases the need for larger and more comfortable vehicles and reduces the tendency for high speeds. These two effects together neutralize the effect of age on the choice of large vehicles and SUVs. The effect of age on the choice of large vehicles could not be explained by solely relying on the objective variables.