The impact of electric cars on travel behaviour segments: Insights from Norway

Abstract

Clustering travellers based on their characteristics and attitudes allows to design more tailored and effective transport policies. Past studies often associated higher environmental awareness with lower car use, assuming that groups showing a mismatch experience a dissonance. However, the development of electric cars (EVs) could have introduced a disruption in this assumption. This hypothesis is tested a Latent Class Analysis of travel behaviour and attitude data of commuters from Nord-Jæren in Norway for 2019 (n = 741) was performed. Three distinct latent classes of commuters have been identified, two consisting of dedicated car users and one of multimodal travellers. The main difference between the first two groups is whether they use an EV. This study suggests that in contexts with high EV deployment, higher environmental awareness should not necessarily be associated with lower car use or higher use of alternative options, and neither should this phenomenon be considered a dissonance.