# The Role of Infrastructural and Psychological Factors in Sustainable Transportation Mode Choices
## 1 Introduction  
The prevalence of motorized individual transport (MIT) in Germany poses a significant challenge to achieving national and global climate goals. With 47% of trips and 65% of passenger kilometers driven by cars [1], the transport sector is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. This reliance on private vehicles not only degrades air quality and exacerbates urban congestion but also hinders progress toward the CO\({}_{2}\) reduction targets established by national and international climate agreements [2]. Despite growing awareness of climate change, a transition to more sustainable mobility remains critical [3]. To address these challenges, policymakers and researchers have introduced several strategies, including the widely recognized 'avoid-shift-improve' framework [4]. This framework aims to reduce travel demand, shift trips to sustainable modes of transport, and improve vehicle and fuel efficiency, as well as traffic management. The discourse has since expanded to encompass a more extensive range of concepts, including the term \"Verkehrswende\" (traffic transition), which is further subdivided into two constituent parts: \"Antriebswende\" (drive transition) and \"Mobilitatswende\" (mobility transition). These terms reflect a more holistic understanding of the necessary changes, integrating technological advancements in vehicle propulsion, systemic shifts in transport infrastructureand services, as well as fundamental changes in mobility behaviors. [PERSON] [5] highlights that these transitions are deeply embedded in social, cultural, and political contexts, underscoring the need for a multifaceted approach to sustainable mobility that extends beyond mere technological solutions. Recent research has highlighted the critical role of psychological factors in transportation decisions [6; 7; 8; 9] while also underscoring the complex interplay between individual behaviors, societal influences, and infrastructural factors [10] that shape these choices. Transport mode choice has been viewed as a conscious decision-making process, often modeled through frameworks such as extended versions of the theory of planned behavior [7; 11; 12; 13]. Understanding the individual psychological drivers of behavior change, particularly in response to environmental challenges, is crucial for promoting sustainable travel behavior [7]. In this context, our study aims to explore the psychological drivers of adaptability, climate change perception (CCP), and car orientation, in conjunction with the infrastructural factors of the city center and railway accessibility from the residence. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach, we seek to enhance the understanding of individual mobility decisions and their underlying determinants. Although active travel modes such as walking and cycling are acknowledged as essential components of sustainable mobility, the present study focuses on the modal choice between MIT and PT, as this conflict represents a key leverage point for emission reduction and system-level transitions. When explaining behavior change, adaptability as a personality trait is an important factor [14]. It captures the individual's capacity to make appropriate responses to changing situations and circumstances [15]. Climate change and the associated growing need for sustainable travel behavior pose such circumstances, which make the concept of adaptability relevant to travel mode choice. Previous findings show that higher adaptability was found to facilitate adaptive performance in changing environments [16]. Another key factor, frequently discussed in the context of sustainability, is climate change perception (CCP), which encompasses \"people's perceptions of the reality and causes of climate change, and the perceived valence, spatial distance, and temporal distance of its consequences\" [17]. CCP has been utilized to explain support for adaptation policies [18] and behaviors like information-seeking related to climate change [19].