Segmentation Analysis of Travellers' Attitudes in the Klang‐Valley Towards Electric Vehicles

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to examine the travel‐related perceptions and behaviours of the residents of the Klang Valley and categorise them into different groups. This research employs the analytic technique of hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) and is focused on the area of environmental concern, economic viability, the existing infrastructure and the awareness of state‐sponsored subsidies. HCA was applied to the collected data of respondents from the Klang Valley, where data dimensionality reduction from 16 to 5 was applied, and the data reliability testing was conducted. The identified clusters were subjected to attitude and motivation analysis in order to determine the statistically significant differences. The study discovered that there are travel‐related customers groups who possess distinctly different travel‐related parameters. Some of them possess a high focus on travel costs, while others concern on the environment or have a greater awareness of the available technologies. The insights from this segmentation would be critical for policy formulation and strengthen electric vehicles (EV) companies, local authorities and policy makers in their marketing strategies. It adds to the body of literature by a localised context of how EV could become a tool toward sustainable transportation development in Malaysia with regards to EV adoption.