The “Pure” Impact of Constructs in the Theory of Planned Behavior on Intention in the Travel Context

The theory of planned behavior (TPB) has been substantially integrated to understand various behavioral decisions. Nevertheless, the significance and magnitude regarding the impacts of the TPB constructs, including attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavior control (PBC), on intention to use a certain transport mode have been argued all the time. This study uses a propensity score matching approach to identify the “pure” impact of TPB constructs on people's behavioral intention to use a certain transport mode, including bus, car, and e-bike. With the spuriousness caused by individual socioeconomic characteristics and transport mode use habits controlled, significant pure impacts of attitude, subjective norm, and PBC on mode use intention are observed in all situations. What is more, the significant role of a mode-specific subjective norm in changing people's intention to use a certain transport mode is explicitly highlighted. The results demonstrate that changes in mode-specific attitude, subjective norm, and PBC are expected to stimulate changes in intention to use the target mode, which is important for transport administrators to design intervention strategies to guide the public's travel behavior toward a more sustainable direction.