While variety-seeking has been analysed intensively in consumer marketing, little is known about its impact in the transport world where many novel travel services have emerged in recent years. In this paper, we investigate how variety-seeking could influence intercity travellers' mode choice decisions in the new context of HSR (high-speed rail)-air intermodality in China. The study is based on data collected in Shanghai, including responses to stated choice tasks and attitudinal statements on variety-seeking. An integrated choice and latent variable (ICLV) model is proposed with a view to provide us with a more behaviourally realistic explanation of respondents' choice decisions. The research findings suggest that variety-seeking has different impacts across modes, where variety seekers would be more likely to choose the newly-introduced integrated HSR-air option whereas variety avoiders have a higher propensity to choose car-air or traditional separate HSR-air alternative. Meanwhile, this study also examines the impact of various level-ofservice attributes in mode choice behaviour, with results implying that long layover would heavily impair the attractiveness of integrated HSR-air service, and integrated luggage handling service is favourable to attract intermodal passengers while the effect of integrated ticketing system remains ambiguous.

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This is a repository copy of A joint model for stated choice and best-worst scaling data using latent attribute importance: application to rail-air intermodality.

Preferences can vary both across respondents (i.e. inter-respondent preference heterogeneity) and across choice tasks within respondents (i.e. intra-respondent preference heterogeneity). Ignoring the existence of intra-respondent preference heterogeneity could bias preference elicitation and demand forecast. Thus far, most studies covering inter- and intra-respondent preference heterogeneity have applied the mixed multinomial logit model. Meanwhile, the behavioural explanations for such preference variations remain under-explored. This paper accommodates inter- and intra-respondent preference heterogeneity through a two-layer latent class modelling structure, where the continuous random distributions are replaced with discrete mixtures in both layers. A latent variable representing variety-seeking is included to explain class membership probabilities, offering additional behavioural insights concerning the source of preference heterogeneity both across and within respondents. Two aspects associated with variety-seeking are examined: novelty-seeking (i.e. the inclination to adopt new modes) and alternation (i.e. the tendency to vary one’s behaviour regularly by selecting different modes continuously). In the context of new shared mobility, this paper finds the role of both aspects in preference heterogeneity. Specifically, novelty seekers are found to be more likely to fall into the class with higher probabilities of switching from existing modes to the new air taxi service than novelty avoiders, and alternation seekers are more likely to belong to the class with higher probabilities to exhibit intra-respondent preference heterogeneity than alternation avoiders. This paper, therefore, provides empirical evidence to identify the target customers of the new air taxi service.