Cultural Backgrounds Effects on Travel Mode Choice of International Communities in Vienna

Abstract

There are many factors influencing daily travel behaviour. For example, information and communication, living space, policies, and urban planning, are among the parameters that are known to affect travel behaviours. Lifestyle and socioeconomic and demographic structures can also be attributed. Although the cultural background of a person may be a determining factor in all parts of our living space and directing our behaviour, it may not have always been taken into consideration in the context of travel behaviour research. In this study, a multilingual online questionnaire was designed to understand and measure the impact of cultural differences of international communities on transportation mode choices and travel behaviour, and an online survey was carried out in Vienna. 213 participants took part in the questionnaire. After the elimination of invalid ones from the data set, for instance, responses from those living outside of Vienna, 150 responses are used for analysis. The data collected from the participants are split into the ones from international communities with non-Viennese origins, native Viennese people, and a mixed/intermediate group. The transportation mode choices and travel behaviours among these communities are compared by statistical analysis. The preliminary analysis among the international communities. evaluating commuting, grocery shopping, and leisure travel shows signs of cultural influences on using transportation modes, frequency and duration. It also implies that more comprehensive and detailed studies are needed on this subject. The result implies that existing policies should be more dynamic and adaptive, especially taking account of the widespread migration wave nowadays.