| Abstract: | Over the past two decades, bicycle share programs (BSPs) have developed rapidly
around the world, with studies finding that people use such service not only for
commuting but also for leisure. However, compared to utilitarian BSP users, limited
research has focused on the factors influencing BSP use for leisure experiences. To begin
this limitation in the current cycling literature, this dissertation explores the key
determinants of leisure BSP use.
The extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology proposed by
Venkatesh, Thong, and Xu (2012) and the dual-attitudes model conceptualized by
Wilson, Lindsey, and Schooler (2000) provided the theoretical framework guiding this
research. First, this dissertation developed the Unified Measurement of Bicycle Share
Program Use (UMBSPU), an encompassing scale for further investigation of factors
influencing an individual’s leisure BSP use. The results of the measurement invariance
testing and method effect examination indicated that this scale, which includes eight
constructs and thirty-three measurement items, is a reliable, valid measurement. Second,
this dissertation applied the UMBSPU to examine the influences of performance
expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, social influence, price value,
hedonic motivation, and habit on Taipei citizens’ intentions to use BSP and their actual
use in leisure time. Among all factors examined, habit demonstrated the strongest predict
validity of use intention. Furthermore, behavioral intention outperformed habit and
facilitating conditions in explaining the variance of actual use.
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Finally, this dissertation used two Single Target Implicit Association Tests (STIATs)
to explore BSP users’ implicit attitudes toward leisure cycling and leisure cyclists.
Explicit attitudes toward leisure cycling and social identity with leisure cyclists were also
measured and compared with implicit attitudes, the results indicating that implicit
attitudes did not significantly predict leisure BSP use. However, social identity exhibited
a strong predictability of an individual’s public bicycle riding frequency. Future research
is needed to cross-validate the UMBSPU in different contexts and to compare the results
from the leisure cycling and cyclists ST-IAT across different types of cyclist groups. |
