Danger, Respect, and Indifference: Bike-Sharing Choices in Shanghai and Tokyo using Latent Choice Models

While various policy instruments have attempted to raise environmental concerns in the past decades, it is unclear if these concerns are revealed in the consumer choices of our daily life. In this study, we investigate whether environmental concerns drive the choices of modes of transport through the bike-sharing example in Tokyo and Shanghai. We conducted a survey questionnaire to define three types of environmental concerns and quantitatively estimated their effects on bike-sharing choices using the latent class model, considering individual heterogeneity. The results show that environmental concerns affect bike-sharing choices differently for different people. While the fear of natural disasters and/or an indifference towards the environment would be dominant factors in commuting, the willingness to preserve a natural environment shows substantial correlations to bike-sharing when respondents return from weekend shopping. These differences indicate that relevant policies should be effectively implemented to interact with such environmental concerns.