Transition From Driving to Bicycling in Short-distance Travel Based on MIMIC Model

To systematically research the impacts of psychological latent factors and exogenous factors on transition from driving to bicycling in short-distance travel, a multiple indicators and multiple cause model of transition intention was established in this paper. Latent factors based on theory of planned behavior were expanded and the interaction relationships among latent factors such as external barrier, individual barrier, bicycling preference, bicycling attitude and subjective norm and transition intention were analyzed. The causal relationships between latent factors and exogenous factors such as socio-demography, travel characteristic, objective environment and car restriction measure were also analyzed. Results show that bicycling transition intention can be adequately explained by external barrier, individual barrier, bicycling preference, bicycling attitude and subjective norm. External barrier, individual barrier, bicycling preference and subjective norm directly affect transition intention, and external barrier, subjective norm and bicycling attitude indirectly affect it. Moreover, exogenous factors have no direct effect on transition intention, but have indirect effect on transition intention by latent factors. Last but not least, external barrier and bicycling attitude are the complete intermediate variable between objective environment and transition intention, and bicycling attitude and bicycling preference are the complete intermediate variable between car restriction measure and transition intention. It indicates that the improvement of perceived environment by using intervening measures is very important. Meanwhile, the improvement of bicycling attitude and preference by implementing car restriction measure is a crucial mean to promoting the transition to bicycling.