It seems to be agreed that ways of moderating or reversing increases in car use need to be found. In this connection, `car dependence' is a problem to be solved, and a barrier to confident policy making. This paper reviews some of the arguments, and presents the results of a study. Approaches to car dependence are drawn from different disciplines including psychology, anthropology, geography, and economics. There is evidence that car drivers systematically misperceive and misunderstand the true costs of motoring, and that regular drivers usually have poor knowledge about alternative transport modes. There is a very wide individual variation in how car-dependent people are and what they think about it. Thus a new definition of `car dependence' needs to be found, taking account of how far feasible alternatives to the car are available for different types of journeys. There is a crucial distinction between car-dependent people and car-dependent trips. Specific categories of trips can be sought where constraints on choice of mode would be expected to be high. As people tend to buy cars when they can afford to, car dependence and the use of cars for short trips both grow. Some implications of existing trends for the development of the distribution of car dependence over time are considered.
Samenvatting