Study on the influence of subjective well-being on travel mode selection

Traffic congestion is increasingly deteriorating people's travel experience, and accordingly the relationship between travel mode selection and subjective well-being has become a hot issue of concern. Motivated by this, an incentive mechanism combining both reward and punishment is proposed to characterize the evolution of subjective well-being. Two psychological thresholds are introduced: payoff higher than the upper limit will result in rewarding while that lowers than the lower limit leads to punishment. Results show that when the upper and lower limits are close enough, cooperative behavior can be dramatically promoted, that is, more travelers choose low-carbon transportation mode. Moreover, we find that punishment is superior to rewarding in stabilizing high cooperative level. It also shows that whether to choose low-carbon transportation mode depends sensitively on the changes of the upper and lower limits as well as the heterogeneity of self-interest. This study is helpful to promote the formulation of green travel management policies in the future.