# Traits and Transports: The Effects of Personality on the Choice of Urban Transport Modes
## 7 Conclusions  
The purpose of the study was to examine the influences of personality traits on the choice of transport mode between cars, public transport, and bicycles. More precisely, three research questions expressed the extent to which personality traits influence car driving, usage of public transportation, and cycling, respectively. Personality traits are defined as the Big Five personality traits (i.e., Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism) and Environmental personality. Age, gender, income, children at home, and residential area are used as control variables in the analyzes. The study design was a survey, and the participants were a web-panel of adult citizen in the area of Gothenburg, Sweden (\(N=1068\)). Overall, the influence of personality traits on the frequency of use of different transport modes is small, especially regarding car driving and use of public transportation. Traditional and well-studied factors, such as age, income and residential area explains much more. Still, we want to draw some conclusions related to our purpose and research questions:  
Some personality traits are the opposite between car drivers and people who use public transport. Car driving is influenced by a low degree of Openness, a high degree of Conscientiousness, and a low degree of Environmental personality. Use of public transportation is influenced by a high degree of Openness, a low degree of Conscientiousness, and a high degree of Environmental personality. Use of public transport is also influenced by a high degree of Agreeableness. Cycling is foremost explained by a high degree of Environmental personality. Environmental personality explains cycling significantly better than the Big Five personality traits and the control variables used in this study. Moreover, environmental personality explains cycling better than it explains car driving and use of public transport. The information presented here can be used by transportation planners and policy makers in understanding choices of different transport modes, especially if they want to change transport behaviors toward more sustainable options-from car driving to use of public transportation and cycling. We believe that a better understanding of individuals can be used to change what lies outside these individuals-for example, infrastructure planning and design, information campaigns, and design of services. Better planning and design can facilitate behavioral changes. One identified challenge is to understand more about how behavioral change can occur among conservative people-those who drive car most frequently. Appealing to environmental effects might not be persuasive for car drivers, as one of our findings show. Another challenge is to design public transportation so that it appeals to people who have a high degree of Conscientiousness. This could for example, be carried out by improving reliability and ease of planning trips by public transport. Conceptualization and writing--original draft preparation, J.M.R., with contributions from F.S. and U.H. ; methodology J.M.R. with contribution from F.S. and U.H. statistical analysis, J.M.R. review and editing, J.M.R., with contributions from F.S. and U.H. funding acquisition, F.S. and U.H. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. The data collection was funded by The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (Formas), grant number 2017-01029; the Swedish Energy Agency, grant number 44452-1. All procedures were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Informed Consent Statement: Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study. The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.