The analysis of the factors determining changes in travel behaviour on the individual (or individual household) level requires information on the behaviour of individuals over time. Such 'transport' panel surveys are rarely available, particularly for a sufficiently long time period to examine such changes more than cursively. For the UK, none exists for other than limited regions. However, the ongoing British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), begun in 1991, does provide some information related to transport specifically, household car ownership as well as information on the economic and socio-demographic characteristics of the households surveyed. This paper exploits the BHPS data for the years 1993 to 1996 to analyse car ownership and the factors determining car ownership decisions on an individual household level. The primary aim of this study is to investigate the issue of state dependence, i.e., the dependence of current choices on past decisions. This is done on the basis of a dynamic discrete choice model in which the household's car ownership is related to income, socio-demographic factors such as household composition and residential location, with car ownership in the previous period representing the state variable.
Abstract