Predicting College Students’ Bike-Sharing Intentions Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior

Abstract

Shared bicycles are sustainable and effective transportation tools in college campuses. Accordingly, this study aimed to assess the behavioral intention of college students toward bike-sharing as an environmentally friendly and social mode of travel. It applied the Theory of Planned Behavior framework to a bike-sharing context and explored the impact of perceived benefits and government policy on college students’ bike-sharing usage. A survey of 934 college students was conducted in Zhejiang province to test the proposed model, and 782 were valid. The findings pointed out that attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control have a significant and positive impact on college students’ intentions toward bike-sharing. Meanwhile, the empirical results revealed that perceived benefits and government policy were the important factors driving college students’ intention and behavior for bike-sharing usage. Moreover, the results ascertained that the intention was aligned with actual actions; eventually, some targeted managerial implications are presented. This study enhances the current understanding of the usage behavior of college students in bike-sharing and provides timely insights for government policymakers and enterprise operators to promote sustainable bike-sharing practices in China and other countries.

E-Bicycle as a Green and Physically Active Mode of Transport from the Aspect of Students: TPB and Financial Incentives

“…Thirdly, when it comes to perceived behavioral control, its lack of significance in this research is contrary to several previous studies [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36], especially those in which that predictor is the most important [29,31,33,34]. Nevertheless, it is in accordance with one previous study regarding the physical activity of the student population from the same university in Serbia [45].…”

“…Secondly, subjective norms being a positive and significant predictor of intention was also noticed in other studies [29][30][31][32][33][34][35]37]. However, while in most research regarding conventional cycling subjective norms is the least important predictor [29][30][31][32], when it comes to studies on e-cycling, it is the most important [35,37].…”

“…One of the research papers included, out of all standard TPB elements, only attitudes and found them important for e-cycling [36]. Additionally, the positive and significant influence of attitudes was also noticed in other studies [29,[33][34][35]37]. There was only one research study, from Indonesia, where attitudes were not found to be significant [31].…”

“…The theory of planned behavior "has received considerable support in a large number of empirical investigations" [28] (p. 323) covering different research fields. It was used in studies related to biking, with a focus on cycling behavior [29], intention to use a bike [10,30,31], and bike sharing [32][33][34]. Besides conventional bicycles, the TPB theory or its factors were applied in studies related to electric bikes.…”

A Comparison in Travel Characteristics of Bike-Sharing between College Students and Office Workers Based on Theory of Planned Behavior

“…As a common travel mode, BS is influenced by multiple factors [ 13 ]. In this research, we choose two types.…”