Tourist decisions in renting various personal travel modes: A case study in Kitakyushu City, Japan

Recently, personal transportation modes have diversified remarkably, and rental use in a tourism area can be one of the strategies to popularize them. This study focused on Kitakyushu City, Japan, and analyzed users' decision-making processes to choose among four modes (ultra-lightweight vehicles [ULVs], electric-assisted bicycles, electric scooters, and electric four-wheel carts) by four evaluation standards: “safety,” “convenience,” “mobility,” and “joy.” The results found that, regarding overall satisfaction of the rental service, most users were satisfied and want to use it in a tourism area as an alternative to, primarily, private cars, even if the service will be provided under a continuous-charging model. In addition, a detailed analysis of the decision-making process of rental use showed that users ranked the criteria in descending order of importance as “safety,” “convenience,” “joy,” and “mobility,” and regarded ULVs as the most preferable transportation mode. •Tourist decision process in renting four new personal travel modes was examined.•Safety was ranked as the most important standard to rent a personal travel mode.•The users in twenties and thirties highly regarded the electric-assisted bicycle.•As a whole, the ULV was regarded as the most preferable mode in a tourism area.•The ULV showed a negative correlation with safety, while positive with the others.