An Integrative Review of Socio-Technical Factors Influencing Travel Decision-Making and Urban Transport Performance

Socio-technical systems have a very complex structure presenting multidimensional co-evolutionary dynamics between people and technical factors. Each urban area has a different sociocultural structure, where the built environment and user choices vary. Understanding how urban transportation is shaped by socio-technical factors as well as how these factors affect transportation users and system performance is important to support sustainable transportation planning. This paper aims to provide a holistic view of socio-technical factors shaping urban transportation for the use of transport planners and decision-makers. The current review focuses on understanding which alternative transport modes can be sustainable under specific socio-technical conditions and how to attract travelers toward these sustainable modes. Moreover, under which socio-technical conditions an urban transport system can minimize its socio-economic costs and environmental impacts are investigated. Furthermore, the interrelations among system dynamics, their influence on transport users as well as on system externalities are identified and integrated as a system model perspective for a holistic view.