The User Preferences for New Energy Motorcycles

Abstract

This study aims to investigate users’ preferences for new energy motorcycles for the purpose of estimating the future development of this mode of transportation and its impacts on urban land use The preferences for using motorcycles based on current experiences were surveyed using a questionnaire to develop a multinomial logit model for describing the choice behaviour among conventional motorcycles and new energy motorcycles New energy motorcycle here refers to electric motorcycles and hydrogen fuel-cell motorcycles The data from a total of 372 returned questionnaires from Taiwan were analysed The results showed that respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics were insignificant with regard to choice behaviour and that these consumers were sensitive to financial attributes such as incentives and vehicle prices In addition vehicle performance such as hill climbing ability driving range and refuelling time were found to be significant to the motorcycle type choice The multinomial logit model developed is able to reveal the critical factors to apply in policy making The trade-offs of vehicle price and incentives of new energy motorcycles and conventional motorcycles were also learned The results should be of great help to new energy motorcycle developers and the urban policymakers

Date of Award	2015 Aug 26
Original language	English
Supervisor	Tzu-Chang Lee (Supervisor)