Mobility biographies: A review of achievements and challenges of the mobility biographies approach and a framework for further research

In transport research, important changes in an individual’s life, so-called key events, are of particular interest because changes in one’s environment and surrounding context weaken routines, and a ‘window of opportunity’ opens up for behavioural change. In the framework of the mobility biographies approach, several studies have been undertaken to improve understanding of travel behaviour change in the last decade. This paper critically and systematically reviews emerging results from mobility biographies research, focusing on key events which potentially induce contextual and travel behaviour changes. The first step was to identify 25 of the most important studies for this approach and their related concepts. Next, notions other than key events in the literature are discussed and a theoretical framework for the longitudinal interaction of four dimensions of key events and other factors for travel behaviour change are identified: (i) life events in private and professional careers, (ii) adaptation of long-term mobility decisions, (iii) exogenous interventions, and (iv) other long-term processes which are not key events (e.g. socialisation). Furthermore, the understanding of key events, methodological challenges and further research gaps are critically discussed in this review.     

Gendered key events in the life course: effects on changes in travel mode choice over time

This paper studies changes in travel mode specific trip rates after life course (and accessibility) related key events from a gender perspective. It is theoretically informed by the mobility biographies approach, and by gender/travel studies. The data used is the German Mobility Panel (GMP) 1994 to 2010 in which households and their members are asked three times in three subsequent years to report the trips they made over a week. The changes reported are regressed to key events over the life course, cohort effects and period effects, while sociodemographics and spatial context attributes are controlled. A cluster–robust regression approach is used to account for the non-independent character of panel observations. Significant effects were found for some key events, including the birth of a child, entry into the labour market, and changes in spatial context, accessibility and mobility. Some effects differed distinctly between men and women, suggesting that men and women are differently affected by life course events. However, taken together the associations found, as well as their gender differences are rather limited. Hence, key events over the life course seem to be only loosely associated with travel mode specific trip rates.     

Causes and effects between attitudes,the built environment and car kilometres: A longitudinal analysis

Travel-related attitudes are believed to affect the connections between the built environment and travel behaviour. Previous studies found supporting evidence for the residential self-selection hypothesis which suggests that the impact of the built environment on travel behaviour could be overestimated when attitudes are not accounted for. However, this hypothesis is under scrutiny as the reverse causality hypothesis, which implies a reverse direction of influence from the built environment towards attitudes, is receiving increased attention in recent research. This study tests both directions of influence by means of cross-sectional and longitudinal structural equation models. GPS tracking is used to assess changes in travel behaviour in terms of car kilometres travelled. The outcomes show stronger reverse causality effects than residential self-selection effects and that land-use policies significantly reduce car kilometres travelled. Moreover, the longitudinal models show that the built environment characteristics provide a better explanation for changes in car kilometres travelled than the travel-related attitudes. This contradicts the cross-sectional analysis where associations between car kilometres travelled and travel-related attitudes were stronger. This highlights the need for more longitudinal studies in this field.     

Housing mobility and travel behaviour: A process-oriented approach to spatial mobility: Evidence from a new research field in Germany

During recent years, some effort has been made to understand the location changes in the life course underlying travel demand in Germany. Such studies have presented travel behaviour and long-term housing mobility as intertwined decision flows within the life course. This perspective calls for new methods, for example comparisons of travel behaviour before and after relocation, or comparisons between different ‘relocation types’. A number of studies have taken on this new perspective. Although there are certain methodological problems arising, notable progress has already been achieved towards a more precise understanding of travel demand. This includes the investigation of the use of transport modes as well as travelled distances and activity spaces. This contribution provides an overview on these studies. Theoretical groundwork, empirically validated aspects, and deficits and blind spots of research are being discussed.     

Transport mode choice in South East Asia: Investigating the relationship between transport users’ perception and travel behaviour in Johor Bahru,Malaysia

The worldwide increase in private car dependency poses a set of significant environmental, economic and social sustainability challenges that continue to undermine the urban quality of life. Rapid motorisation, particularly in South East Asia (SEA), has emerged as a global concern given the region’s cumulative population, rate of industrialisation, and large-scale urbanisation. Thus, there is a compelling need to enhance our understanding of the underlying dynamics of how people perceive and use transportation such that transport planning is better placed to address the current, unsustainable travel patterns in SEA. Despite this need, there has been relatively limited SEA-based research that has endeavoured to examine travel perceptions and transport mode choice from a non-instrumental perspective. This research redresses this deficit by investigating the relationship between transport users’ perceptions and travel behaviours within SEA, with a particular focus on psychosocial drivers of transport mode choice interfaced with more traditional instrumental measures.Spatially stratified survey data have been collected in a case study area, Johor Bahru, Malaysia, comprising users from different transport user groups. Employing regression modelling, drivers of individual’s travel behaviour are examined. Results highlight the merit in recognising the role of non-instrumental motives alongside instrumental motives to explain transport mode choice. We conclude by highlighting that transport mode choices are motivated by a range of locational, socio-demographic, psychological and cultural determinants. The current research has contributed to a better understanding of transport mode choice in Johor Bahru and provides a foundation for future SEA-based travel behaviour research. Studies in this area can inform more sustainable travel behaviour in the SEA region.     

Life events and mobility milestones: Advances in mobility biography theory and research

The concept of mobility biographies has recently gained considerable currency in social-scientific transport research, reflecting increasing awareness of the long-term development of mobility practices. To complement existing work on the effects of major life events on mobility practices, we introduce the novel concept of ‘mobility milestones’, that is, mobility-related events across the life course that show a very high dependence on (infra)structural factors. Overall, the paper explicitly recognises the centrality of interactions between structural factors and human agency, thereby moving beyond a sole focus on individual travel behaviour.Initially, this paper reviews social and interdisciplinary research on mobility biographies, especially studies that use retrospective survey methodologies. Building on this review, we present an innovative online survey tool that has been deployed on the island of Ireland (n = 324) to record changes in individuals' mobility biographies and their connections with both life events and mobility milestones. This is followed by a discussion of key findings regarding the impact of starting college, residential relocation and changing employment, as well as buying a car or bicycle or getting a driving licence on individuals' modal choice.     

Communication and mobility behaviour – a trend and panel analysis of the correlation between mobile phone use and mobility

The paper examines the assumption about the complementarity between telecommunications and transport on the level of individual persons. Taking into account that previous studies have shown the particularly strong correlation between mobile phone use and travel behaviour, telecommunications use is considered by focussing on the mobile phone. Using panel data from Germany for the years 2004 and 2007 the first step consisted in an investigation of changes in mobile phone use taking into consideration also the level from which potential changes started. About one half of the respondents had changed their mobile phone use, in most cases by an increase of use. In a second step a comparison was made to potential changes in travel behaviour of the observed persons. The results show that in those groups of persons where the mobile phone use was on a high level or even increased from a high level in 2003, travel behaviour in terms of travel frequency decreased less than for all other persons or even increased. The assumption that changes in “life circumstances” such as new place of residence or change of household size trigger the change in mobile phone use or travel behaviour could be generally confirmed.     

Social media in tourism: a visual analytic approach

This research note seeks to examine a vast amount of tourism-related Chinese social media posts using a visual analytic approach. Visual analytics turns information overload into an opportunity. In this case, the mainstream Chinese microblog service, Sina Weibo, was selected as it generates large volumes of data, representing significant consumer insights, that are challenging to analyse by other common research methods. The most frequently reposted tourist visa news in the first eight months of 2014 were harvested and used as a case study. Findings from this study demonstrate that a visual analytic approach can offer insights into the impact of travel news on Chinese consumers. These insights include potential tourist generating regions, the life span of travel news, and tourists’ attitudes towards travel policy changes. Such insights provide important implications for scholars and practitioners, such as enabling real-time decisions of Destination Management Organizations’ social media marketing strategies in China.     

Becoming ‘a Londoner’: Migrants’ experiences and habits of everyday (im)mobilities over the life course

Everyday (im)mobilities continuously emerge out of dynamic interactions between bodies, objects and environments. Demonstrating the importance of past behaviours, life course and context, mobility biographies research has supplemented and advanced previous understandings of the factors which sustain and transform everyday mobilities. Despite this, its empirical and theoretical scope remains limited. The primary focus on certain life stages and key events as triggers of change in long-term travel behaviour has meant the effects of small-scale, short-term and multi-directional changes have largely been overlooked or ignored. I argue this failure is in part due to prevailing conceptions of experience, habit and environment. Engaging primarily with John Dewey’s writings and empirical materials generated with New Zealand migrants in London, I demonstrate how experience and habit can instead be understood as dynamic, relational and temporal processes. These New Zealanders, like other migrants, are shown to occupy multiple subject positions between, and experience complex dislocations and engagements with the practicalities of, places of departure and settlement. Their accounts help to foreground how events and happenings that continuously unfold in the everyday lives of migrants and non-migrants are undergone, negotiated, contested and fraught with uncertainty, innovation and ambivalence. Stretching across time and space, the cumulative, reinforcing and transformative effects of these processes do not coincide with pre-defined events but nonetheless change how movement, dwelling and subjectivities are differentially experienced and embodied.     

Examining the spatial–temporal dynamics of bus passenger travel behaviour using smart card data and the flow-comap

Over the past two decades, smart card data have received increasing interest from transport researchers as a new source of data for travel behaviour investigation. Collected by smart card systems, smart card data surpass traditional travel survey data in providing more comprehensive spatial–temporal information about urban public transport-based (UPT) trips. However, the utility of smart card data has arguably yet to be exploited fully in terms of extracting and exploring the spatial–temporal dynamics of UPT passenger travel behaviour. To advance previous work in this area, this paper demonstrates a multi-step methodology in order to render more insightful spatial–temporal patterns of UPT passenger travel behaviour. Drawing on the Brisbane, Australia, bus network as the case study, a smart card dataset was first processed in combination with General Transit Specification Feed (GTFS) data to reconstruct travel trajectories of bus passengers at bus stop level of spatial granularity. By applying geographical information system-based (GIS) techniques, this dataset was used to create flow-comaps to visualise the aggregate flow patterns at a network level. The flow-comaps uncovered the major pathways of bus passengers and its variations over a one-day period. The differences within the flow-comaps were also quantified to produce weighted flow-comaps that highlighted the major temporal changes of passenger flow patterns along a number of stop-to-stop linkages of the bus network. The proposed methodology visually unveiled the spatial–temporal travel behaviour dynamics of UPT passengers and, in doing so, showed the potential to contribute to a new evidence base with the capacity to inform local public transport policy.     

Interdependences between household residential and car ownership behavior: a life history analysis

Once a transportation system is built or a land-use policy is carried out, it influences people’s travel behavior and their lives for a long time period. It is therefore important for policy makers to understand people’s decisions on travel behavior and lives over a longer time period. However, little has been known about the interdependences between life domains, especially over the life course (i.e., biographical interdependences) in the context of residential and car ownership behavior. To fill this gap, this study aims to clarify households’ biographical interdependences relating to residential and car ownership biographies by explicitly incorporating the influence of household structure and employment/education biographies. Biography is defined based on a general concept of mobility that indicates a change occurring in a life domain. For this purpose, a Web-based life history survey was conducted in November 2010 and 1000 households living in major Japanese cities provided valid data. Aggregate analysis and exhaustive CHAID analysis were carried out, focusing on the occurrence times of mobilities in each biography. Results confirm obvious two-way cause–effect relationships over the life course between residential and car ownership biographies that are further influenced by household structure and employment/education biographies. Especially, not only short-term but also long-term state dependence and future expectations within and across life domains are clarified. Household structure and employment/education biographies are found to be more influential on residential biography than car ownership biography. Though residential biography is seen to be more influential on car ownership biography, the other two biographies also play an important role in explaining the car ownership mobility decision. All these findings suggest the necessity of developing intra-domain and inter-domain biographical interdependence models with flexible structures that capture the influences of state dependence and future expectations over different time scales in the life course in a unified framework.     

Use of non-motorised modes and life stage in Edinburgh

Links between life stage and travel behaviour are explored using Scottish Household Survey non-motorised mode data for Edinburgh. Employing cluster analysis, the sample is split into ten population segments, largely based on life stage. The life stage of having children is shown to affect individual travel behaviour. Households with children present have distinctive travel behaviour characteristics: they are particularly car dependent, tend to own but not use bicycles, and favour leisure cycling trips. A concerted, targeted policy effort is recommended in order to reduce motor car usage and encourage non-motorised modes.     

Making plans or “just thinking about the trip”? Understanding people’s travel planning in practice

ICT solutions have been proposed as a means for changing environmentally unfavourable traffic behaviour by providing better, real-time and more accessible travel information. However, prevailing models of travel choice and travel behaviour tend to overemphasise the impact and importance of information and the individualistic perspective. The issue of choice and travel planning in everyday life situations, and how information is used and acted on in these processes, was examined in a qualitative study in Stockholm, Sweden. Practice Theory was used as the theoretical framework for the study. Interviews were supplemented with an explorative diary and photo assignment to bring unreflected choices and actions of planning travel to the conscious level.The results showed that travel planning involves the immediate situation where planning and decisions are made, but also aspirations, cognitive/time/material limitations, social norms and social relations that extend widely in time and space. Definitions of travel planning and travel information based on the situated practices of planning are suggested. In the muddle of everyday life, travel planning takes place in the brief moments where circumstances at different levels – time, place, the social realm - interact and are considered or directly acted upon. In the development of new ICT-based travel information services, the role of technology in changing normal practices should be considered.     

Profiling Sport Tourists: The Case of Super 12 Rugby Union in the Australian Capital Territory,Australia

The concept of sport related tourism has become more prominent in the last few years as both an academic field of study and an increasingly popular tourism product (Gibson, 1998). Sport tourism includes travel to participate in a passive (e.g. sports events and museums) or active sport holiday (e.g. scuba diving and cycling), and it may involve instances where sport or tourism itself is the dominant activity or reason for travel. However, little research has been undertaken to examine the profile of sport tourist market segments in an attempt to understand these segments and their potential as tourism markets. This paper will examine one such attempt to profile sport tourist spectators through surveying sport tourists attending Super 12 Rugby Union matches at Bruce Stadium, Canberra in April/May 2000. The paper discusses the preliminary results of this exploratory study, and examines the sporting behaviour and travel behaviour of spectators. The paper will then discuss differences between spectator characteristics with an emphasis on examining high yield segments based on sport and travel behaviour, and will conclude with a discussion of future research possibilities.     

Exploring the motivation of Chinese immigrants for homeland tourism

This study explored the travel motives of the Chinese immigrants who visit their homeland for vacation. A combination of qualitative interview and quantitative survey was undertaken to collect data. Five-hundred valid Chinese immigrants in Macao were surveyed. Three core travel motivation factors are revealed: attractiveness of the tourist resources, connection to the past, and socialising with family and friends. The travel motives reflect the emotional needs of the Chinese immigrants who visit their homeland for vacation and suggest that homeland tourism is likely to provide the Chinese immigrants with a chance to recollect their past memories and experiences with their homeland and lead them to some nostalgic feelings and thoughts about their personal life, which contribute to a memorable tourist experience. Moreover, the travel patterns of the Chinese immigrants were significantly correlated with their travel motives, suggesting that homeland tourists have their unique travel needs and behaviour and thus should be treated as a separate tourist segment. For future research, it is worthwhile to undertake a further investigation in the travel motives and behaviour of immigrants with different cultural and ethnical backgrounds in order to better understand homeland tourists.     

Air travel attitudes and behaviours: The development of environment-based segments

In an era when the transport sector is increasingly contributing to environmental damage there is a need to better understand the behavioural response of consumers. Theories such as the Theory of Planned Behaviour and the Norm-Activation Model have had some success in explaining pro-environmental behaviours; this paper examines the application of these to air travel. It utilises insights from previous attitude behaviour research to develop a more detailed understanding of how normative influences, individual values and other psychological factors are affected by individual attitudes to air travel attitudes and how these influence behaviour. This informs recommendations for a policy response, which emphasises the need to bring air travel behaviour in line with other energy saving household behaviours.     

Exploring the trip chaining behaviour of public transport users in Melbourne

This paper explores trip chaining behaviour of Melbourne residents using evidence from a household travel survey. The research literature has suggested that trip-making behaviour has grown increasingly complex as modern life has become busier and people grow time-poor. Complex trip chains have been said to require flexible travel modes, and for this reason some research has suggested that public transport is limited in this regard compared to the private car. Results of this study show that between 1994 and 1999 the complexity of trip chains was relatively stable and the complexity of chains was found to be larger for rail and tram than for car-based trips. Disaggregate analyses compare the complexity of chains based on work versus non-work chains, the purpose of stops on the chain, and whether the chain entered the central city of Melbourne or not. Overall these findings suggest a less bleak outlook for public transport ridership in a travel future which is said to be becoming more complex.     

Temporal interdependencies in mobility decisions over the life course: A household-level analysis using dynamic Bayesian networks

Life trajectory analysis has been shown a powerful approach to understand the interdependencies between key life events, critical incidents and long-term mobility decisions such as residential move, job change and change in vehicle possession, which in turn constitute the context of daily activity-travel decisions. Because people in multi-earner households share resources, some of these long-term decisions affect them equally, while job change affects them differently because their job location likely differs. Current life course models in transportation research, however, have typically considered individuals' trajectories. To contribute to the further development of the relatively thin line of research in transportation studies, a dynamic Bayesian network approach is proposed to investigate the temporal interdependencies between life course events from a household perspective. Results show that the effects of child birth are much larger on residential and car ownership change than on job change for both household heads in dual-earner households. Moreover, the probability of residential and car ownership change increases when both spouses have relatively long commuting times. In case only the husband faces an excessive commuting time, households have a larger probability of moving house or purchasing an additional car. By contrast, in case only the wife faces an excessive commuting time, she is more likely to change job rather than the household taking particular actions to adjust to the problematic situation.     

Understanding the process that gives rise to household car ownership level changes

Quantitative studies have revealed that changes to the number of cars owned by households are more likely to occur at the time of life events. However, causal explanations of such relationships are either absent or lacking evidence. To address this knowledge gap, this paper presents a qualitative study which enabled the development of a new conceptual framework to explain the process through which the number of cars owned by households changes over time. The framework emerged through an inductive analysis of 15 in-depth biographical interviews and was validated through a mixed methods survey of 184 households located in Bristol (UK). The following mechanisms of the process are identified: Life events alter roles, relationships, spatial contexts and lifestyle preferences. This can lead to a condition of stress which relates to a discrepancy between satisfaction with the current car ownership level and a more desirable alternative. Attempts to adjust to the new situation are made through processes of travel behaviour adaptation and consideration of whether the car ownership level ought to be altered. A propensity to change car ownership level can emerge from this. However, given the effort involved in taking action, households tend to resist making changes to their car ownership level in the short term. Action to change car ownership level is found to often be prompted by another external stimulus such as the receipt of a maintenance bill. A key message from the analysis is that changes in household car ownership level should be considered as the outcome of a continuous process of development over the life course, rather than as discrete decisions.     

Bergen light rail – Effects on travel behaviour

Bergen is the second most populous city in Norway (280,000 inhabitants) and is situated along the west coast of the country. In 2010, the city reintroduced tram service with the opening of a new light rail line, after a gap of 45 years. This study documents the increase in public transit use in Bergen, both in terms of volume and market share, since the line was opened. Furthermore, it explores the effects of light rail transit on travel behaviour using Bergen as a case city. These goals are accomplished by combining and analysing data from different sources, including five travel surveys, and other data concerning building stock, population, business activity, commuting and traffic counts. The study identifies four potential driving forces for changes in travel behaviour: (1) the introduction of the light rail; (2) a new high-frequency bus network; (3) increased rates in the toll cordon system; and (4) changes in the urban structure. The study concluded that the introduction of light rail was the main driving force behind the growth in public transit use. The study also highlighted that transit use was highest in areas served by the light rail. The effects of the light rail investments are reinforced by an optimal location of the line with respect to potential users.