Resistance to change: Car use and routines

The economics literature has shown that individual behaviour is not necessarily driven by rational principles but is mainly influenced by emotional and habit-related factors (Hoffman et al. 2017). An opportunity to test individual transport attitudes was offered by a radical change in the mobility pattern induced for a short period by a big event which took place in Florence, a medium-sized historical Italian city. This event offered an opportunity to analyse how commuters adapted to the transport reorganization, which aimed to prevent car use during the event. We perform an empirical analysis on a sample of employees, comparing transport choices during the event to their stated ordinary behaviour. The paper focuses on analysing the decision to modify transport choice in changed circumstances with particular reference to changes in general transport costs (GTC). The findings highlight that, notwithstanding a sizeable shift in relative convenience among alternative modes as measured by GTC, commuters and especially car drivers showed resistance to adapting to the big event.