Faster or slower? Valence framing of car drivers’ urban route choices

Abstract

Urban traffic management aims to influence navigational decisions of drivers to avoid congestion and provides travel information. To this effect, even small-scale differences between route options can be presented as gains or losses (valence framing), e.g. ‘Route A is 1 min faster than Route B.’ vs. ‘Route B is 1 min slower than Route A.’ or ‘Route A has 1 min waiting time at traffic lights.’ vs. ‘Route B has no waiting time.’ To analyze if valence framing has an impact on route choices, a short online survey was conducted. Four route choice scenarios were presented, consisting of a 500 m main route with red traffic light and an alternative without traffic lights but varying travel time and distance. A total 458 drivers participated and were randomly assigned to one of the five experimental groups: control, gain or loss frame of travel time, gain or loss frame of waiting at a red traffic light. Results showed for the framing of travel time that gain framed routes were often approached more than loss framed routes were avoided. The framing of the waiting time had no effect. Traffic planners and policy-makers as well as navigation system manufacturers could make use of the findings but more research is needed on the design of travel information.

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