Exploring Sense of Place Attitudes as Indicators of Travel Behavior

Researchers in travel behavior have explored attitudes as important determinants since the 1980s. However, with recent increased frequency, researchers are broadening the use of attitudinal data in models to explain behavior. Much of the application however has focused on attitudes about entities such as lifestyles and attributes of different transport modes. Little focus has been placed on attitudes related to places and attributes of humanplace interaction. Much theorizing has taken place in the past forty years focusing on this human-place interaction, which has been formalized into the theory of sense of place. This paper discusses the quantification of this theory, and the implementation of this attitudinal information into travel behavior modeling. To do this a survey was conducted in Santa Barbara, California to measure sense of place and and estimate model of travel behavior. Patrons of two outdoor shopping malls in Santa Barbara were questioned about place attitudes, socio-demographic information and details regarding their activity and travel of the day. Alternate regression model specifications are employed here to examine differences between the two study locations, the use of mode for arrival, and the timing of the activity pointing out the value of the sense of place construct as a determinant of travel behavior.