Perceived Accessibility of Public Transport Predicts Intention to Give Up Car Ownership but Objective Accessibility Does Not

Car ownership imposes substantial economic, spatial, and environmental burdens on society. Improving public transport accessibility is widely believed to alleviate these burdens by motivating car owners to switch to more sustainable modes of transportation. However, the impact of improved public transport accessibility on motivating existing car owners to give up car ownership remains underexplored. This study addresses this knowledge gap by examining how two approaches to measuring public transport accessibility - an objective, spatial network-based metric (Public Transport Accessibility Level, PTAL) and a subjective, perception-based measure (perceived accessibility) - influence the intention to give up car ownership. Two studies were conducted in Singapore, an appropriate setting to examine the research question due to its high car ownership costs, which incentivizes car owners to stay informed of public transport developments, and its well-developed public transport system, which ensures that objective accessibility is not constrained. In Study 1, which surveyed a sample of 801 car owners benchmarked against key demographic of the 2016 Household Interview Travel Survey, perceived accessibility predicted the intention to give up car ownership, while PTAL did not. Study 2, which recruited 164 employees of Singapore's Land Transport Authority, replicated the earlier findings and also suggested that lack of information on developments of the public transport system was not the reason for the discrepancy between PTAL and perceived accessibility. These findings underscore the importance of incorporating perceptual factors into transportation policy to foster meaningful reductions in car ownership, as network- based metrics alone may not fully capture the user experience.