The role of symbolism in transport choice across differing national cultures : implications for policy formulation and transfer

Modal choice is driven by instrumental variables such as travel time, and latent variables such as perceived safety. A latent variable that has been shown to play a role in mode choice is symbolism - what people believe a transport mode communicates about them to third parties in a social context. Given symbols are an outward manifestation of culture, it seems reasonable to surmise that the symbolic value of a transport mode differs within, and across, cultural clusters. One example of such a cluster would be national culture, a subject which due to globalisation has been increasingly studied in recent years, spawning a number of proxy indices by which to compare countries. If the symbolic connotations of modes which may be seen as sustainable - walking, cycling, public transport, ‘ecocars’ and car sharing - were to significantly differ across national cultures, then this would be likely to have ramifications for policy development and transfer between nations. Focusing on the mega cities of India and China, this thesis examines these premises by developing two meta cultural clusters on the basis of Hofstede’s cross-cultural indices of power differential, and individualism versus collectivism. By sourcing interviewees who possess similar sociodemographic characteristics from within Indian and Chinese mega cities, as well as their counterparts in cities from nations with contrasting Hofstede scores, and through deductive thematic analysis, the symbolic connotations of the sustainable modes are compared to expand theory. The significant thematic differences between the meta clusters - demonstrated through coding densities and quotes - are shown to have significant ramifications for policy transfer. With unprecedented levels of air pollution in the mega cities of India and China this is a pertinent finding from which further research can be constructed to influence policy.