Perception in Motion. Perceived Accessibility and Travel Routines in a Car-Dependent Suburban Context

Sammanfattning

Sustainable transport planning aims to reduce car use by improving physical accessibility by sustainable modes of transport. However, emerging research suggests that individuals do not respond directly to the physical environment, but to their own perceptions of how easily they can perform the activities that matter to them using one or more transport modes, that is, perceived accessibility. This thesis investigates the relationship between mode- and activity-specific perceived accessibility and travel routines within the car-dependent suburban context of southwestern Gothenburg.The study employs a quantitative approach, drawing on a web-based survey of 237 residents. Travel routines are operationalized through primary mode choice and modal experience across three trip purposes: commuting, performing a regular leisure or fitness activity, and grocery shopping. Using a three-stage analytical strategy involving logistic and ordinal regressions, the thesis examines how perceptions, habits, and spatial conditions interact.The central finding is that perceived accessibility is the strongest correlate of travel routines, largely absorbing the effects of calculated travel time, car dependency, habits, and sociodemographic characteristics. The results further reveal a competitive cross-modal perceptual structure that aggregated measures of perceived accessibility fail to capture. The thesis contributes to the literature by theorizing an asymmetric recursive relationship, in which repeated car use in car-dependent settings leads to the perceptual suppression of alternatives, making sustainable modes perceived as unfamiliar or unrealistic even when physically available and occasionally used. Habitual automaticity is further identified as a moderator that determines how tightly perception and behavior are aligned. The thesis concludes that infrastructure improvements are necessary but not sufficient unless they are accompanied by conditions tha