An integrated model of structural equations with cognitive and environmental factors for the study of active commuting

Abstract

Introduction: The active commuting can be defined as the action of displacement to the educa-tional or work centre by way of any non-motorised means of transport, usually by walking or cycling. The aim of this study is to identify and evaluate cognitive and environmental factors for the active commuting. Methods: In order to propose a set of beliefs and attitudes that explain the main possible moti-vations for an individual to carry out the active commuting, a model based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour, health and environment is developed. To compute the results, a structural equations model is proposed instead of another standard regression technique, due to the use of multiple indicators for each latent construct. The proposed model permits to evaluate each of the aspects and to quantify their contribution to the global behavioural intention. Results: The computation of the structural equations model concludes that, for the intention to practise active commuting, the most influential variable is attitude, followed by health and environmental awareness. It is interesting to see that perceived behavioural control exerts a negative influence on the intention, while the subjective norm has no significant effect. Conclusions: From the results of this study can be induced that the perceived behavioural control, health, and environmental awareness exert a significant influence on attitude and intention to practice active commuting. Furthermore, the results also show that attitude influences as a pre-cursor to the intention of practicing and permit to rank the relative weight of each aspect: atti-tude, health and environmental awareness. Hence, political measures that publicise the benefits of active commuting in these particular aspects should have significant results in the promotion of this activity.