In order to understand how individual decisions contribute to the overall growth in car ownership, a small scale social research exercise, using in-depth interviews, looked at the reasons people have for acquiring a first or additional household car. The study shows that it is possible to identify a range of different motivations for car acquisition, which are related to demographic variables, lifestyle and the role of financial circumstances in the decision to buy a car. It also shows that conventional assumptions about the car as a household commodity, and about increases in ownership being permanent, may not be valid at the disaggregate level. The report concludes with a discussion of how such data may assist in understanding the overall pattern of growth of car ownership. (Author/publisher) This paper was presented at the World Conference on Transport Research, Hamburg, April, 1983.
Samenvatting