The role of personal motives in determining car ownership and use: a literature review

Car dependency leads to a variety of societal problems and challenges, not least environmental ones. Even in countries with high-quality public transport and bike infrastructure, such as the Netherlands, the majority of trips and trip-kilometres are performed by cars (Ton et al., 2020). It is therefore not only paramount but also critical, to understand the underlying determinants of car ownership and usage-related choices. Among those contributing factors, the role of subjective factors is often acknowledged to be important, yet not well understood. In this work, we conduct a systematic review of the literature regarding the effect of such motives on car ownership and usage. Based on the commonalities found in the reviewed articles, we identify and describe the five most relevant subjective factors in detail: (i) instrumental motives and autonomy, (ii) affective motives, (iii) symbolic motives, (iv) social norms, and (v) environmental motives. People primarily consider instrumental reasons and autonomy when choosing a car over other transport modes. Additionally, users develop affective connections with their cars. In a broader societal context, individuals have symbolic motives related to the image they want to project and the influence of social norms. We also observed a growing focus on environmental concerns, particularly related to sustainability-oriented behaviours. Based on the synthesis of these findings, we propose a car ownership/use motives model, that communicates the interaction between individuals, transport modes, family and society, and the environment, as illustrated in Figure 1. We discuss implications for public policy, such as implications on car-free and car-sharing policies, and outline directions for future research, such as the relationship between electrification and car-related motives and the bi-directional complexities between the use of cars and personal attitudes. Notes This research was supported by the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute) where the first author was a Research Fellow and a Postdoctoral researcher at the TU Delft. This paper is currently published open access at Transportation Reviews: Jaime Soza-Parra & Oded Cats (2023) The role of personal motives in determining car ownership and use: a literature review, Transport Reviews DOI: 10.1080/01441647.2023.2278445