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Handbook of Sustainable Travel pp 53–65Cite as

Satisfaction and Travel Choices

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Abstract

Linkages between activities, travel, and overall subjective well-being (SWB) are analyzed. SWB is broadly defined as the evaluation of the cognitive and affective components of human experiences. Developments in the measurement of subjective well-being (SWB) and the application of SWB research to travel are reviewed, with a particular emphasis on a modelling framework linking SWB to travel attributes and travel behaviour. Empirical evidence from the measurement of SWB in activities and travel has shown that travel plays a role for overall well-being and that the timing at which travel well-being is measured matters due to the dynamic nature of well-being. It is argued that SWB and utility are the same but a distinction needs to be made among the different notions of utility. Consequently, an extended random utility model framework with SWB measures as additional indicators of utility is presented, and an application of this framework to travel mode choice is shown to yield an improved model of travel mode choice.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The discussion in this section is based on Abou-Zeid and Ben-Akiva (2010, 2012).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, American University of Beirut, 11-0236/FEA-CEE, Bechtel Room 2M3, Riad El-Solh, Beirut, 1107 2020, Lebanon

    Maya Abou-Zeid

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

    Moshe Ben-Akiva

Authors
  1. Maya Abou-Zeid
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  2. Moshe Ben-Akiva
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Correspondence to Maya Abou-Zeid .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, Göteborg, Sweden

    Tommy Gärling

  2. Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Dick Ettema

  3. SAMOT/CTF, Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden

    Margareta Friman

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Abou-Zeid, M., Ben-Akiva, M. (2014). Satisfaction and Travel Choices. In: Gärling, T., Ettema, D., Friman, M. (eds) Handbook of Sustainable Travel. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7034-8_4

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