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Promoting public transport as a subscription service: Effects of a free month travel card

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  • Thøgersen, John

Abstract

Newspapers, book clubs, telephone services and many other subscription services are often marketed to new customers by means of a free or substantially discounted trial period. This article evaluates this method as a means to promote commuting by public transport in a field experiment and based on a solid behavioural-theoretical framework. By measuring important antecedents and mediators, the applied approach offers important insights not only on what behavioural outcomes were produced by the intervention, but why they were produced. Copenhagen car owners received a free month travel card, either alone or together with a customised travel plan or a planning intervention. A control group receiving no intervention was also included. Attitudinal variables, car habits and travel behaviour were measured before and immediately after the intervention and again six months later. The only intervention that had an effect was the free month travel card, which led to a significant increase in commuting by public transport. As expected, the effect was mediated through a change in behavioural intentions rather than a change in perceived constraints. As expected, the effect became weaker when the promotion offer had expired, but an effect was still evident five months later. Possible reasons and implications of this are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Thøgersen, John, 2009. "Promoting public transport as a subscription service: Effects of a free month travel card," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 335-343, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:trapol:v:16:y:2009:i:6:p:335-343
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Cohen, Tom, 2009. "Evaluating personal travel planning: If it is prohibitively expensive to get a robust answer then what should we do?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 344-347, November.
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    1. Tørnblad, Silje H. & Kallbekken, Steffen & Korneliussen, Kristine & Mideksa, Torben K., 2014. "Using mobility management to reduce private car use: Results from a natural field experiment in Norway," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 9-15.
    2. Redman, Lauren & Friman, Margareta & Gärling, Tommy & Hartig, Terry, 2013. "Quality attributes of public transport that attract car users: A research review," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 119-127.
    3. Chowdhury, Subeh & Ceder, Avishai (Avi), 2016. "Users’ willingness to ride an integrated public-transport service: A literature review," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 183-195.
    4. Hiroaki Nishiuchi & Yasuyuki Kobayashi & Tomoyuki Todoroki & Tomoya Kawasaki, 2018. "Impact analysis of reductions in tram services in rural areas in Japan using smart card data," Public Transport, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 291-309, August.
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    6. Xiaozhou Ye, 2022. "Bike-Sharing Adoption in Cross-National Contexts: An Empirical Research on the Factors Affecting Users’ Intentions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-19, March.

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