Measuring Future Vehicle Preferences

The culmination of new vehicle technology, greater competition in energy markets, and government policies to reduce pollution and energy consumption will result in changes to the personal vehicle marketplace. To measure future vehicle preferences, stated preference (SP) surveys have been the dominant approach. Prior research has been limited to a narrow focus of accelerating respondents' hypothetical next vehicle purchasing decisions without mimicking the influence of the marketplace on these decisions. To explore marketplace influences, this study proposes to use a novel SP survey design to analyze vehicle purchasing behavior in a dynamically changing marketplace through the use of dynamic attributes and a 6-year hypothetical time window. The survey is divided into three parts: household characteristics, current vehicles, and SP. The SP section presents respondents with various hypothetical scenarios annually over a future 6-year period with one of three experiments. The experiments correspond to changing vehicle technology, fueling options, and taxation policy. Between scenarios, the vehicle, fuel, and policy attributes dynamically change to mimic marketplace conditions. A pilot web-based survey was performed during fall 2010. Mixed logit models showed that individuals responded in behaviorally realistic ways and that the survey design allowed for estimation of important parameters in vehicle choice. Respondents were able to depreciate their vehicles over the 5-year hypothetical period and place trade-offs on the features of vehicles and fuel types. The insights from the survey are also used to suggest refinements to the survey methods and areas for further research.