Publication Detail

How Real is a Reported Desire to Travel for its Own Sake? Exploring the ‘Teleportation’ Concept in Travel Behaviour Research

UCD-ITS-RP-15-54

Journal Article

Available online at: DOI: 10.1007/s11116-014-9546-1

Suggested Citation:
Russell, Marie and Patricia L. Mokhtarian (2015) How Real is a Reported Desire to Travel for its Own Sake? Exploring the ‘Teleportation’ Concept in Travel Behaviour Research. Transportation 42 (2), 333 - 345

The ‘teleportation test’ has been used in travel behaviour research for more than a decade, as a means of assessing whether an individual views travel purely as a disutility. The teleportation concept has been used successfully in qualitative research to elicit responses and clarify attitudes to travel time. However, survey-based studies have revealed an apparent inconsistency, in that many people who report an ideal travel time greater than zero, and/or do not consider their travel time as wasted, also report wanting to teleport. This note reviews a range of studies involving the teleportation concept, highlights the inconsistency, suggests reasons for it, and proposes a research approach for testing the validity of those reasons.