Linking daily destinations to satisfaction, utility, and subjective well-being

Keywords: daily mobility, destinations, travel satisfaction, experienced utility, subjective well-being
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 63

Abstract

Much is known about commuting behavior in the travel literature field in terms of trip characteristics, travel satisfaction, and positive utility, but less attention has been paid to daily shopping, leisure, and undirected trips. Having a more robust understanding of daily mobility is important to understanding the true value of daily travel as it is an essential life domain with the ability to affect overall well-being. As the first research output to consider these four different trip types (commuting, shopping, leisure, and undirected) simultaneously within the same sample, this paper will evaluate differences in characteristics (mode, distance, duration, frequency), level of satisfaction, and experienced utility (improving physical health, improving mental well-being, enjoying scenery, and out-of-home socialization) among 1122 daily travel trips using survey data (n=332) from Flanders, Belgium. Results indicate that shopping trips are unsatisfying and associated with speed and car use, leisure trips are most satisfying with the greatest positive utility, undirected trips are longer in duration and important to physical health, and commuting trips are important to out-of-home socialization and also unsatisfying. This investigation offers information regarding the true share of different trip types to total daily travel, how satisfaction with different trips can relate to overall well-being, and how experienced utility might differ when considering the context of the destination.