Subjective well-being and travel: retrospect and prospect

Although the improvement of well-being is often an implicitly-assumed goal of many, if not most, public policies, the study of subjective well-being (SWB) and travel has so far been confined to a relatively small segment of the travel behavior community. Accordingly, one main purpose of this paper is to introduce a larger share of the community to some fundamental SWB-related concepts and their application in transportation research, with the goal of attracting others to this rewarding area of study. At the same time, however, I also hope to offer some useful reflections to those already working in this field. After discussing some basic issues of terminology and measurement of SWB, I present from the literature four conceptual models relating travel and subjective well-being. Following one of those models, I review five ways in which travel can influence well-being. I conclude by examining some challenges associated with assessing the impacts of travel on well-being, as well as challenges associated with applying what we learn to policy.

[1]  S. Lyubomirsky,et al.  The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success? , 2005, Psychological bulletin.

[2]  Chu Kim-prieto,et al.  New Well-being Measures: Short Scales to Assess Flourishing and Positive and Negative Feelings , 2010 .

[3]  H. Adakal,et al.  Experiences in Tick Control by Acaricide in the Traditional Cattle Sector in Zambia and Burkina Faso: Possible Environmental and Public Health Implications , 2016, Front. Public Health.

[4]  Allan C. DeSerpa.  Microeconomic theory and the valuation of travel time: Some clarification , 1973 .

[5]  Kingsley Adjenughwure,et al.  The Monetary Value of a Pleasant and Productive Train Trip: Developing an experimental method for estimating the monetary value of activities performed during travel , 2017 .

[6]  Virginia Thomas,et al.  Tapping Into the App , 2016 .

[7]  Tommy Gärling,et al.  How overall satisfaction relate to quality attributes and frequency of negative critical incidents in public transport services , 1998 .

[8]  Patricia L. Mokhtarian,et al.  How do activities conducted while commuting influence mode choice? Using revealed preference models to inform public transportation advantage and autonomous vehicle scenarios , 2019, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice.

[9]  Hans-Werner Wahl,et al.  Continuity and change in older adults' perceptions of out-of-home mobility over ten years: a qualitative–quantitative approach , 2011, Ageing and Society.

[10]  T. Seeman.  Social ties and health: the benefits of social integration. , 1996, Annals of epidemiology.

[11]  P M Jones,et al.  MOBILITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN WESTERN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY. IN: THE AUTOMOBILE , 1985 .

[12]  Feng Zhen,et al.  How do passengers use travel time? A case study of Shanghai–Nanjing high speed rail , 2018 .

[13]  Tommy Gärling,et al.  Satisfaction with travel and subjective well-being: Development and test of a measurement tool , 2011 .

[14]  E. Deci,et al.  On happiness and human potentials: a review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. , 2001, Annual review of psychology.

[15]  Richard Wener,et al.  The Morning Rush Hour , 2002 .

[16]  D. Kahneman,et al.  A Survey Method for Characterizing Daily Life Experience: The Day Reconstruction Method , 2004, Science.

[17]  Patricia L. Mokhtarian,et al.  What makes travel pleasant and/or tiring? An investigation based on the French National Travel Survey , 2012, Transportation.

[18]  Patricia L. Mokhtarian,et al.  When is getting there half the fun? Modeling the liking for travel - eScholarship , 2005 .

[19]  David A. Hensher,et al.  Value of business travel time , 1977 .

[20]  Erik Allardt,et al.  Having, Loving, Being: An Alternative to the Swedish Model of Welfare Research , 1993 .

[21]  Stephen G. Ritchie,et al.  STOCHASTIC MODELING AND REAL-TIME PREDICTION OF VEHICULAR LANE-CHANGING BEHAVIOR , 2001 .

[22]  Kari Watkins,et al.  An experiment evaluating the impacts of real-time transit information on bus riders in Tampa, Florida , 2014 .

[23]  Ilan Salomon,et al.  How Derived is the Demand for Travel? Some Conceptual and Measurement Considerations , 2001 .

[24]  D. Ettema,et al.  Out-of-home activities, daily travel, and subjective well-being , 2010 .

[25]  Patricia L. Mokhtarian,et al.  How real is a reported desire to travel for its own sake? Exploring the ‘teleportation’ concept in travel behaviour research , 2015 .

[26]  Dimitris A. Tsouknidis,et al.  Liquidity Effects and FFA Returns in the International Shipping Derivatives Market , 2015 .

[27]  R. Cummins,et al.  Developing a National Index of Subjective Wellbeing: The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index , 2003 .

[28]  Arnab Jana,et al.  Impact of ICT on multitasking during travel and the value of travel time savings: Empirical evidences from Mumbai, India , 2018, Travel Behaviour and Society.

[29]  Hans Baumgartner,et al.  Response Styles in Marketing Research: A Cross-National Investigation , 2001 .

[30]  D. Hennessy,et al.  Traffic congestion, driver stress, and driver aggression , 1999 .

[31]  Tommy Gärling,et al.  The measurement of core affect: a Swedish self-report measure derived from the affect circumplex. , 2002, Scandinavian journal of psychology.

[32]  Oecd Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being Measuring Subjective Well-being 3. Measuring Subjective Well-being Oecd Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being , 2022 .

[33]  E. Diener,et al.  Review of the Satisfaction with Life Scale , 1993 .

[34]  David Bissell,et al.  Passenger Mobilities: Affective Atmospheres and the Sociality of Public Transport , 2010 .

[35]  T. Gärling,et al.  FREQUENCY OF NEGATIVE CRITICAL INCIDENTS AND SATISFACTION WITH PUBLIC TRANSPORT SERVICES , 2001 .

[36]  S. Pudney,et al.  If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands! Survey design and the analysis of satisfaction , 2008 .

[37]  M. Wardman,et al.  The digital revolution and worthwhile use of travel time: implications for appraisal and forecasting , 2016 .

[38]  D. Ettema,et al.  How in-vehicle activities affect work commuters’ satisfaction with public transport , 2012 .

[39]  G. Becker,et al.  A Theory of the Allocation of Time , 1965 .

[40]  Patricia L. Mokhtarian,et al.  Do Multitasking Millennials Value Travel Time Differently? A Revealed Preference Study of Northern California Commuters , 2017 .

[41]  Kathryn Graff Low,et al.  Effects of dance/movement therapy: A meta-analysis , 1996 .

[42]  A. Waterman,et al.  The Questionnaire for Eudaimonic Well-Being: Psychometric properties, demographic comparisons, and evidence of validity , 2010, The journal of positive psychology.

[43]  Theodore J. Mansfield,et al.  Estimating Active Transportation Behaviors to Support Health Impact Assessment in the United States , 2016, Front. Public Health.

[44]  A. Wearing,et al.  Top-down versus bottom-up theories of subjective well-being , 1991 .

[45]  Glenn Lyons,et al.  Rail Passengers’ Time Use and Utility Assessment , 2012 .

[46]  D. Watson,et al.  Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. , 1988, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[47]  Vincent Kaufmann,et al.  Motility: Mobility as capital , 2004 .

[48]  C. Ryff.  Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. , 1989 .

[49]  Ilan Salomon,et al.  What Moves Us? An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Reasons for Traveling , 2015 .

[50]  A. Waterman,et al.  Eudaimonia and Its Distinction from Hedonia: Developing a Classification and Terminology for Understanding Conceptual and Operational Definitions , 2014 .

[51]  Glenn Lyons,et al.  The gift of travel time , 2008 .

[52]  A. Manley.  Physical Activity And Health: A Report Of The Surgeon General , 2004 .

[53]  M. Csíkszentmihályi,et al.  Validity and Reliability of the Experience‐Sampling Method , 1987, The Journal of nervous and mental disease.

[54]  Satoshi Fujii,et al.  TIME-USE DATA, ANALYSIS AND MODELING: TOWARD THE NEXT GENERATION OF TRANSPORTATION PLANNING METHODOLOGIES , 1997 .

[55]  Edward L. Deci,et al.  Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior , 1975, Perspectives in Social Psychology.

[56]  A. Bowling,et al.  Independence and mobility in later life , 2012 .

[57]  Frank Witlox,et al.  Travel satisfaction revisited : on the pivotal role of travel satisfaction in conceptualizing a travel behavior process , 2017 .

[58]  Andrew Daly,et al.  Impact of family in-home quality time on person travel demand , 2016 .

[59]  Bert Van Wee,et al.  Option Value of Public Transport: Methodology for Measurement and Case Study for Regional Rail Links in the Netherlands , 2006 .

[60]  Dick Ettema,et al.  Multitasking and Value of Travel Time Savings , 2007 .

[61]  Richard E. Lucas,et al.  Well-Being for Public Policy , 2009 .

[62]  R. Pendyala,et al.  Travel Satisfaction and Well-Being , 2018 .

[63]  Alan J Horowitz,et al.  THE SUBJECTIVE VALUE OF THE TIME SPENT IN TRAVEL , 1978 .

[64]  S. Shiffman,et al.  Ecological momentary assessment. , 2008, Annual review of clinical psychology.

[65]  Frank Witlox,et al.  Travel and Subjective Well-Being: A Focus on Findings, Methods and Future Research Needs , 2013 .

[66]  John M. Rose,et al.  Crowding in public transport systems: Effects on users, operation and implications for the estimation of demand , 2013 .

[67]  David M Levinson,et al.  Value of Travel Time Reliability: A Review of Current Evidence , 2010 .

[68]  S. Abdallah,et al.  Well-being and Transport: Taking Stock and Looking Forward , 2013 .

[69]  T. Gärling,et al.  Forecasting Psychological Consequences of Car Use Reduction: A Challenge to an Environmental Psychology of Transportation , 2002 .

[70]  R. Ryan,et al.  Pursuing Pleasure or Virtue: The Differential and Overlapping Well-Being Benefits of Hedonic and Eudaimonic Motives , 2010 .

[71]  Stephen T. Ziliak,et al.  Size Matters: The Standard Error of Regressions in the American Economic Review , 2004 .

[72]  T. Schwanen,et al.  Well-being and Mobility: A Theoretical Framework and Literature Review Focusing on Older People , 2014 .

[73]  Glenn Lyons,et al.  A Human Perspective on the Daily Commute: Costs, Benefits and Trade‐offs , 2008 .

[74]  A. Bowling,et al.  Quality of life for the elderly: the transport dimension , 2004 .

[75]  Alexa Delbosc,et al.  The role of well-being in transport policy , 2012 .

[76]  D. Ettema,et al.  Happiness and Satisfaction with Work Commute , 2012, Social Indicators Research.

[77]  I. Ajzen,et al.  Attitude-behavior relations: A theoretical analysis and review of empirical research. , 1977 .

[78]  Cathy Macharis,et al.  Travel-based multitasking: review of the empirical evidence , 2018 .

[79]  C. Musselwhite,et al.  Mobility, accessibility and quality of later life , 2010 .

[80]  A. Maslow.  A Theory of Human Motivation , 1943 .

[81]  Karthik C. Konduri,et al.  Modeling the Connection between Activity-Travel Patterns and Subjective Well-Being , 2013 .

[82]  Graham Currie,et al.  Modelling the social and psychological impacts of transport disadvantage , 2010 .

[83]  Hani S. Mahmassani,et al.  Making time count: Traveler activity engagement on urban transit , 2015 .

[84]  R. Heady,et al.  Flextime Commuters and Their Driver Stress, Feelings of Time Urgency, and Commute Satisfaction , 2002 .

[85]  E. Diener,et al.  Subjective well-being. , 1984, Psychological bulletin.

[86]  Richard Wener,et al.  Running for the 7:45: The effects of public transit improvements on commuter stress , 2003 .

[87]  Sarah F. Dean,et al.  My Horse Is My Therapist: The Medicalization of Pleasure among Women Equestrians. , 2015, Medical anthropology quarterly.

[88]  Tim Schwanen,et al.  Well-Being, Context, and Everyday Activities in Space and Time , 2014 .