Expectations about quality of travel time: social mixing – secessionism as an attitude dimension relevant to modal choice

Travel time has traditionally been considered by travel behaviour research as interstitial and meaningless for travelers. As such, it has mainly been studied in quantitative terms. However, as urban sociologist Michael Flamm has pointed out, different “modes of appropriation” of travel time can be identified. This paper argues that one possible way for passengers of public transport to make use of their travel time is to engage in activities such as observing other passengers or listening to their chatting – and there are indeed many reasons to suspect that this kind of behaviour may in fact be more common than what usually thought. In that sense, some people may be motivated to use public transport aiming to maximize the opportunities for co-presence and spontaneous exchanges that it entails. Others may instead prefer the car in order to avoid interactions with strangers; in this case, it is likely that other modes of appropriation of travel time, encouraged by the private environment of the car (such as singing along with the music or engaging in phone conversations with relatives and friends), will be privileged. This paper argues that the continuum between these two extremes can be conceived as an attitude dimension which opposes social mixing and secessionism in mobility, and proposes its measurement through a Likert scale. In doing that, the article suggests that expectations about quality (and not only quantity) of travel time may impact on modal choice. A theoretical section, aimed at defining the construct clearly on the basis of existing literature on travel behaviour, is presented. There follows a methodological part, focused on the necessary steps of scale development – an issue often overlooked. Finally, the results of a little used pre-testing procedure (respondent debriefing), carried out in 2009, are presented: interestingly, they seem to suggest the bi-dimensionality of the construct.