IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/transp/v47y2020i4d10.1007_s11116-019-10060-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Linear, non-linear, bi-directional? Testing the nature of the relationship between mobility and satisfaction with life

Author

Listed:
  • Alexa Delbosc

    (Monash University)

  • Maarten Kroesen

    (TU Delft)

  • Bert Wee

    (TU Delft)

  • Mathijs Haas

    (KiM Netherlands Institute for Transport Policy Analysis)

Abstract

Travel is one of the most important facilitators of life and has been widely acknowledged as a prerequisite for economic and social activity. Research developing in recent decades has found that limitations to mobility and accessibility can reduce satisfaction with life. To date, research in this field assumes a linear and one-way relationship between the two—i.e. that ‘more mobility’ results in ‘more life satisfaction’. Yet diminishing marginal returns on happiness are found in many related fields such as economics, and there is always the possibility that happier people travel more than unhappy people. To the authors’ knowledge, this paper presents the first attempt to look for evidence of a non-linear relationship between mobility (measured as trip-making) and life satisfaction, and the first to test the direction of causality between the two factors. It uses a sample of some 1500 adults in the Netherlands Mobility Panel. Linear and segmented regression models were used to associate trip-making with satisfaction with life, when controlling for income, age, self-rated health and other demographics. Counter to expectations, five different model specifications suggest that the relationship between trip-making and satisfaction with life is linear. Furthermore, a structural equation model found that the relationship between mobility and satisfaction could run in either direction. This study questions many of the assumptions made about the relationship between transport and subjective well-being. Given the increasing prominence of this topic, much research is needed to further explore these complex relationships.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexa Delbosc & Maarten Kroesen & Bert Wee & Mathijs Haas, 2020. "Linear, non-linear, bi-directional? Testing the nature of the relationship between mobility and satisfaction with life," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 2049-2066, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:transp:v:47:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1007_s11116-019-10060-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s11116-019-10060-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11116-019-10060-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11116-019-10060-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Morris, Eric A., 2015. "Should we all just stay home? Travel, out-of-home activities, and life satisfaction," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 519-536.
    2. Golob, Thomas F., 2003. "Structural equation modeling for travel behavior research," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 1-25, January.
    3. Mokhtarian, Patricia L. & Salomon, Ilan, 2001. "How derived is the demand for travel? Some conceptual and measurement considerations," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 695-719, September.
    4. Clark, Andrew E & Oswald, Andrew J, 1994. "Unhappiness and Unemployment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(424), pages 648-659, May.
    5. Louise Reardon & Saamah Abdallah, 2013. "Well-being and Transport: Taking Stock and Looking Forward," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(6), pages 634-657, November.
    6. Banister, David & Bowling, Ann, 2004. "Quality of life for the elderly: the transport dimension," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 105-115, April.
    7. Jonas De Vos & Tim Schwanen & Veronique Van Acker & Frank Witlox, 2013. "Travel and Subjective Well-Being: A Focus on Findings, Methods and Future Research Needs," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(4), pages 421-442, July.
    8. Spinney, Jamie E.L. & Scott, Darren M. & Newbold, K. Bruce, 2009. "Transport mobility benefits and quality of life: A time-use perspective of elderly Canadians," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 1-11, January.
    9. Bhat, Chandra R. & Srinivasan, Sivaramakrishnan & Sen, Sudeshna, 2006. "A joint model for the perfect and imperfect substitute goods case: Application to activity time-use decisions," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 827-850, December.
    10. Pinjari, Abdul Rawoof & Bhat, Chandra, 2010. "A multiple discrete-continuous nested extreme value (MDCNEV) model: Formulation and application to non-worker activity time-use and timing behavior on weekdays," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 562-583, May.
    11. Erika Spissu & Abdul Pinjari & Chandra Bhat & Ram Pendyala & Kay Axhausen, 2009. "An analysis of weekly out-of-home discretionary activity participation and time-use behavior," Transportation, Springer, vol. 36(5), pages 483-510, September.
    12. Eric Morris & Erick Guerra, 2015. "Mood and mode: does how we travel affect how we feel?," Transportation, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 25-43, January.
    13. Lucas, Karen, 2012. "Transport and social exclusion: Where are we now?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 105-113.
    14. Ettema, Dick & Gärling, Tommy & Olsson, Lars E. & Friman, Margareta, 2010. "Out-of-home activities, daily travel, and subjective well-being," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 44(9), pages 723-732, November.
    15. Rebecca Shliselberg & Moshe Givoni, 2018. "Motility as a policy objective," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3), pages 279-297, May.
    16. Delbosc, Alexa & Mokhtarian, Patricia, 2018. "Face to Facebook: The relationship between social media and social travel," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 20-27.
    17. Asif Ahmed & Peter Stopher, 2014. "Seventy Minutes Plus or Minus 10 - A Review of Travel Time Budget Studies," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(5), pages 607-625, September.
    18. Patricia L. Mokhtarian, 2019. "Subjective well-being and travel: retrospect and prospect," Transportation, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 493-513, April.
    19. De Vos, Jonas & Witlox, Frank, 2017. "Travel satisfaction revisited. On the pivotal role of travel satisfaction in conceptualising a travel behaviour process," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 364-373.
    20. Ettema, Dick & Bastin, Fabian & Polak, John & Ashiru, Olu, 2007. "Modelling the joint choice of activity timing and duration," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 41(9), pages 827-841, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ye, Runing & De Vos, Jonas & Ma, Liang, 2020. "Analysing the association of dissonance between actual and ideal commute time and commute satisfaction," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 47-60.
    2. Jesper Bláfoss Ingvardson & Sigal Kaplan & João de Abreu e Silva & Floridea Ciommo & Yoram Shiftan & Otto Anker Nielsen, 2020. "Existence, relatedness and growth needs as mediators between mode choice and travel satisfaction: evidence from Denmark," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 337-358, February.
    3. Morris, Eric A., 2015. "Should we all just stay home? Travel, out-of-home activities, and life satisfaction," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 519-536.
    4. Jonas De Vos, 2019. "Analysing the effect of trip satisfaction on satisfaction with the leisure activity at the destination of the trip, in relationship with life satisfaction," Transportation, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 623-645, June.
    5. Annesha Enam & Karthik C. Konduri & Naveen Eluru & Srinath Ravulaparthy, 2018. "Relationship between well-being and daily time use of elderly: evidence from the disabilities and use of time survey," Transportation, Springer, vol. 45(6), pages 1783-1810, November.
    6. Patricia L. Mokhtarian, 2019. "Subjective well-being and travel: retrospect and prospect," Transportation, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 493-513, April.
    7. Tae‐Hyoung Tommy Gim, 2020. "The relationship between overall happiness and perceived transportation services relative to other individual and environmental variables," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 712-733, June.
    8. De Vos, Jonas, 2018. "Do people travel with their preferred travel mode? Analysing the extent of travel mode dissonance and its effect on travel satisfaction," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 261-274.
    9. Timothée Cuignet & Camille Perchoux & Geoffrey Caruso & Olivier Klein & Sylvain Klein & Basile Chaix & Yan Kestens & Philippe Gerber, 2020. "Mobility among older adults: Deconstructing the effects of motility and movement on wellbeing," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(2), pages 383-401, February.
    10. De Vos, Jonas & Witlox, Frank, 2017. "Travel satisfaction revisited. On the pivotal role of travel satisfaction in conceptualising a travel behaviour process," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 364-373.
    11. Kaplan, Sigal & Wrzesinska, Dagmara K. & Prato, Carlo G., 2018. "The role of human needs in the intention to use conventional and electric bicycle sharing in a driving-oriented country," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 138-146.
    12. Morris, Eric A. & Blumenberg, Evelyn & Guerra, Erick, 2020. "Does lacking a car put the brakes on activity participation? Private vehicle access and access to opportunities among low-income adults," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 375-397.
    13. Li, Shengxiao (Alex) & Guan, Xiaodong & Wang, Donggen, 2022. "How do constrained car ownership and car use influence travel and life satisfaction?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 202-218.
    14. Friman, Margareta & Gärling, Tommy & Ettema, Dick & Olsson, Lars E., 2017. "How does travel affect emotional well-being and life satisfaction?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 170-180.
    15. Dong, Han & Zhang, Jun & Cirillo, Cinzia, 2019. "Exploring, understanding, and modeling the reciprocal relation between leisure and subjective well-being," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 813-824.
    16. Maya Abou-Zeid & Satoshi Fujii, 2016. "Travel satisfaction effects of changes in public transport usage," Transportation, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 301-314, March.
    17. Majumdar, Bandhan Bandhu & Jayakumar, Malavika & Sahu, Prasanta K. & Potoglou, Dimitris, 2021. "Identification of key determinants of travel satisfaction for developing policy instrument to improve quality of life: An analysis of commuting in Delhi," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 281-292.
    18. David Perez-Barbosa & Junyi Zhang, 2017. "Transport-Based Social Exclusion in Rural Japan: A Case Study on Schooling Trips of High School Students," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(4), pages 235-250.
    19. Lorenz, Olga, 2018. "Does commuting matter to subjective well-being?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 180-199.
    20. He, Sylvia Y. & Thøgersen, John & Cheung, Yannie H.Y. & Yu, Alesia H.Y., 2020. "Ageing in a transit-oriented city: Satisfaction with transport, social inclusion and wellbeing," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 85-94.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:transp:v:47:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1007_s11116-019-10060-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.