Beyond the flexibility narrative of automobility: How regular are car users’ mobility patterns?

Abstract

The widespread reliance on cars for daily mobility is often justified by a perceived need for flexibility, allowing travelers to adjust activities, schedules, and trips in response to everyday demands. However, beyond the dominant narrative of automobility as inherently flexible, to what extent is this flexibility observable in actual travel behavior? This study examines spatial and scheduling regularities in travel behaviors across three user typologies based on car dependency: exclusive car users, moderate car users, and mixed-mode users. Regularity is assessed through location choices and degrees of scheduling freedom. Using multi-day GPS tracking data from the Swiss-wide MOBIS study, we apply a graph-based approach to analyze both spatial and scheduling patterns. Our findings challenge the assumption that car users exhibit greater unpredictability. Instead, mobility regularity persists across modal groups: regular users remain regular, and irregular users remain irregular, regardless of car dependence. Intensive car users do not demonstrate greater locational innovation, while mixed-mode users exhibit more habitual spatial behaviors than exclusive or moderate car users. Moreover, pricing and nudging interventions had limited impact, reinforcing the persistence of established mobility patterns. These results contribute to research on habitual mobility and modal choice, showing that car use does not inherently enable more flexible travel. Rather, the perceived flexibility of automobility appears more ideological than behavioral, sustained by dominant transport narratives rather than observed mobility patterns. These findings suggest that shifting mobility behaviors requires more than financial incentives – calling for integrated policies that also reshape cultural narratives around accessibility and car use.