Applying logistic regression analysis to understand young travelers’ attitudes toward carpooling: The impact of Incentives, Ride-Mate characteristics on travel choices

• Female travelers weigh gender, smoking, and driving style more when choosing carpool partners compared to males. • Incentives such as HOV lanes, priority parking, tax reductions, and discounts on public transport encourage carpooling. • Students and employees in the same organization are more likely to carpool together. • Short commutes are less likely to carpool as they are less willing to extend their travel times. • Motorcycle users and households with multiple working members show a lower tendency to carpool. Carpooling has the potential to ease urban traffic challenges by reducing vehicles. However, adopting effective policies to promote carpooling requires a clear understanding of people’s attitudes towards it. This study aims to contribute to this area by examining young travelers’ attitudes towards carpooling, with emphasis on the impact of ride-mates’ characteristics and incentive schemes. The study is based on a survey that was conducted in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Pakistan, with a total sample size of 400 responses. Multinomial and ordinal logistic regression analyses were used to analyze carpooling intentions based on socio-economic, trip, and ride-mate characteristics, and incentive schemes. The results reveal that attitudes toward carpooling clubs and digital apps, and incentive schemes (e.g., priority parking and tax reductions) significantly influence individuals’ willingness to carpool. Additionally, travel purposes have a strong relation with carpooling, as people are more willing to carpool to their workplace or study place than to other destinations. Moreover, the results show that characteristics of ride-mates, such as driving style, gender, and smoking habits, strongly influence the decision to accept carpooling with others, while factors like caste, appearance, and age are less important. The findings highlight the importance of implementing targeted carpooling initiatives in educational institutions and workplaces with integrating incentives such as launching digital platforms and priority parking for carpooling.