Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT are increasingly embedded in travel planning, yet how they shape tourist decision-making remains poorly understood. Existing research describes what generative AI recommends but not how travelers respond to it, leaving destination selection, sustainability perception, and transport planning largely unexamined as domains of AI influence.
This study's objective was to determine how interaction with AI-generated information and recommendations in travel-planning influences tourist decision-making. This question was examined across three domains of travel planning: destination preference, sustainability perception and behavioral intention, and transport choice.
To address this objective, the study employed an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design comprising three within-subjects experiments with 41 participants. Phase 1 examined destination preference shifts following open-ended ChatGPT interaction. Phase 2 investigated whether an AI-generated sustainability evaluation shifted travelers' sustainability perceptions and behavioral intentions. Phase 3 examined how AI-generated mobility advice shaped awareness and consideration of transport alternatives, as well as intended transport choice. Pre-post quantitative measures were combined with inductive content analysis of participant interviews to uncover the reasoning behind observed shifts.
Across all three phases, AI-generated advice shifted preferences and perceptions far more readily than it shifted intended behavior. In Phase 1, 88% of participants updated their destination preferences following AI interaction, resulting in choices that were, on average, less sustainable and skewed toward a recurring set of niche destinations. In Phase 2, AI-generated sustainability assessments significantly increased participants' perceived sustainability of a past trip, yet 68% indicated no intention to change their behavior on a repeat trip, with interviews pointing to validation-driven perception change. In Phase 3, only 30% of participants altered their intended transport plan after receiving AI mobility advice, though the majority reported learning new options and increased willingness to consider alternatives for future trips. Across all three phases, stated distrust of AI did not reliably predict resistance to its influence, and willingness and intent to use AI for future travel planning increased regardless of shifts to intended decisions. Participants consistently treated AI as a support tool rather than a final decision-maker, incorporating its output selectively into decisions they retained ownership over.
This study concludes that AI's influence on tourist decision-making is real but uneven across travel planning domains. It reliably reshapes what travelers prefer, perceive, are aware of, and are willing to consider, without requiring trust and without producing a matching shift in intended behavior. Destination preferences shifted most readily, often toward less sustainable and more niche choices; sustainability perceptions improved without motivating corresponding action; and transport choice showed the most limited influence of the three domains, with AI expanding awareness of alternatives more than it changed intended plans. These findings provide the first empirical evidence of how GenAI travel recommendations influence decision outcomes across destination choice, sustainability awareness, and transport behavior, informing both responsible AI design and efforts to steer tourism toward lower-impact patterns.
... Read more

Generative AI (GenAI) has become a near-universal feature of students' academic work, yet institutions cannot reliably detect it. As a result, many universities rely on students to disclose their GenAI use themselves, making honest self-disclosure central to the validity of assessment. When students conceal this use, the credibility of assessed work is undermined. This study examines why students engage in such non-disclosure. Rather than treating non-disclosure as a single act, it distinguishes full non-disclosure (concealing GenAI use entirely) from partial non-disclosure (admitting some use while withholding its extent or nature), and it measures each as both past behavior and future intention. Drawing on Deterrence Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior, together with academic self-efficacy and policy awareness, the study tests how these factors explain non-disclosure. Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey of 431 higher education students and analysed using hierarchical regression across the four outcomes, complemented by an exploratory mediation analysis. The findings show that non-disclosure is primarily an evaluative and social decision. Attitude toward concealment was the strongest predictor of every outcome, followed by subjective norms, while the perceived certainty, severity, and swiftness of sanctions had only weak and largely indirect effects. Perceived behavioral control, self-efficacy, and policy awareness mattered mainly for the partial forms. These results suggest that institutions can address non-disclosure more effectively by shaping shared norms and understanding than by relying on harsher enforcement. ... Read more

Cycling is a cornerstone of Dutch mobility and is internationally recognised as a safe, efficient, and sustainable mode of transport. However, Dutch cycling environments are becoming increasingly diverse due to the growing presence of electric bicycles, speed pedelecs, fatbikes, cargo bikes, delivery vehicles, and other emerging mobility technologies. While previous research has predominantly focused on objective safety outcomes such as crashes, injuries, and infrastructure design, considerably less is known about how cyclists experience safety within these evolving environments. Understanding perceived safety is essential, as it influences cycling behaviour, route choice, and long-term participation in cycling.

This study explores how cyclists experience and navigate safety in Dutch bicycle lanes amid the increasing presence of emerging vehicles and mobility technologies. Rather than examining objective safety risks alone, the research investigates how cyclists interpret interactions, respond to uncertainty, and adapt their behaviour within increasingly complex traffic environments. The central research question is: How do cyclists experience and navigate safety in an urban road environment increasingly shaped by new vehicles and emerging technologies?

A qualitative research design was adopted to capture cyclists' lived experiences. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 participants representing diverse ages, genders, cycling experience levels, cycling frequencies, and familiarity with Dutch cycling culture. The sample included both Dutch and international cyclists, enabling comparison across different user groups. Interview data were analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis, informed by risk perception theory and a socio-technical systems perspective.

The findings indicate that participants continue to regard the Dutch cycling system as highly functional and supportive of everyday mobility. Nevertheless, they also perceive cycling environments as becoming increasingly diverse, dynamic, and cognitively demanding. Contrary to expectations, participants rarely identified individual vehicle types as the principal source of perceived danger. Instead, safety concerns were primarily associated with uncertainty surrounding the behaviour of other road users and the increasing difficulty of interpreting, anticipating, and responding to interactions.

Six interconnected themes emerged from the analysis: interactional uncertainty, cognitive burden, trust and interpretability, adaptive burden, cumulative strain, and social categorisation. Together, these themes describe how cyclists experience and respond to an increasingly heterogeneous cycling environment. The findings demonstrate that emerging vehicles influence perceived safety indirectly by reducing behavioural predictability, increasing mental effort, generating emotional responses such as stress and frustration, and encouraging behavioural adaptations including defensive cycling, route changes, and avoidance strategies. Participants also relied on mental models and social categorisation to interpret unfamiliar road users and manage uncertainty during interactions.

These experiences were not evenly distributed across cyclists. Older cyclists, international cyclists, less experienced cyclists, and parents cycling with children generally reported greater vulnerability and relied more heavily on avoidance-based adaptation strategies. Drawing upon risk perception theory and socio-technical systems thinking, the study proposes that perceived cycling safety emerges through a common interactional process. Increasing vehicle diversity reduces behavioural predictability, which elevates cognitive burden and emotional strain. Cyclists subsequently adapt their behaviour to restore a sense of control and maintain acceptable levels of perceived safety. Perceived safety is therefore conceptualised not as a fixed property of infrastructure or an objective measure of crash risk, but as an emergent phenomenon arising from interactions between technologies, infrastructure, behavioural norms, and individual interpretation.

The study concludes that successful integration of emerging mobility technologies depends not only on accommodating new vehicles within existing infrastructure but also on preserving behavioural predictability and shared expectations between increasingly diverse road users. From a practical perspective, the findings suggest that policymakers and infrastructure planners should focus not only on reducing objective safety risks but also on maintaining behavioural predictability through infrastructure design, vehicle regulation, speed management, behavioural interventions, and education. Although the findings are based on qualitative interviews and are not statistically generalisable, they provide detailed insights into how interactional uncertainty shapes perceived safety in increasingly heterogeneous cycling environments. ... Read more

In the Netherlands, motorway speed limits are often treated as technical traffic measure that developed from a technical traffic-management issue into a recurring political and societal debate shaped by competing public values. This thesis shows that motorway speed limits are also a politically and publicly contested policy issue. This thesis examines how Dutch newspaper discourse framed proposals to raise motorway speed limits and which arguments were emphasized across key moments of political and institutional change. The central question of this thesis is How do Dutch media discourses frame proposals to raise motorway speed limits and what arguments are emphasized in this public debate?

Within this study a qualitative framing analysis was conducted on 43 newspaper articles published between 2010 and 2025 in five major Dutch newspapers: de Volkskrant, AD, NRC, Trouw and de Telegraaf. The focus of the analysis is on four key events in the Dutch speed limit debate: the political decision and rollout of 130 km/h, the 2019 Council of State Programma Aanpak Stikstof (PAS) ruling, the cabinet decision and implementation of the daytime 100 km/h limit and later political signals regarding a partial return to 130 km/h. The codebook consists of six value categories: safety, sustainability, mobility, legitimacy, autonomy and justice.

The findings show that media framing of motorway speed limits varied substantially over time. it was not through one stable rationale but markedly across events. The introduction of 130 km/h was framed through a broad and politicized constellation of values. After the 2019 PAS ruling, the debate narrowed sharply around sustainability and legal constraint. In the following phase, surrounding the daytime 100 km/h measure, the discourse became more pragmatic and centered on trade-offs involving feasibility, housing and infrastructure. In the last phase, the debate became broader under more constrained conditions by combining arguments related to freedom with questions on feasibility, safety, mobility and sustainability.

Overall, this thesis argues that speed-limit policy on the motorways and its legitimacy is continuously renegotiated through changing constellations of values shaped by political and institutional context. Challenging technical research on speed limits is not the contribution of this study. But the contribution is to complement it by showing how media discourse construct the public meaning and legitimacy of a policy issue that is often approached as primarily technical or administrative. It adds a media-framing and legitimacy perspective to transport policy which makes it important for research and it also matters for practice because it suggests that policymakers cannot rely on technical evidence alone to secure stable support for transport measures. ... Read more

Fat bikes have become a visible and controversial part of urban mobility in the Netherlands. They are often associated with safety concerns, nuisance and irresponsible behaviour in public debate. However, it still remains unclear to what extent these portrayals actually reflect the experiences of fat bike riders themselves. This study examines how fat bike riders experience, interpret and respond to these dominant public narratives surrounding their bikes.
In order to address this, the study combines a media analysis with semi-structured interviews. The media analysis explores how fat bikes and their users are presented and/or framed in public discourse, while the interviews provide a greater insight into how riders themselves experience these portrayals and how this influences their behaviour and identity.
The findings reveal a clear difference in how the public is represented and the everyday experiences of riders’. Even though riders primarily describe the bike as a practical and ordinary means of transportation, media coverage frequently frames fat bikes as problematic and linked to unsafe behaviour. Riders simultaneously experience collective blame, where responsibility for individual incidents is extended to the whole group. This results into perceptions of unfairness, which in turn influence how riders behave and present themselves in public. For example, by riding safer or distancing themselves from negative stereotypes.
These findings highlight that safety concerns that are linked to fat bikes cannot be understood in terms of the technology only but are also strongly shaped by user behaviour and public framing. Looking from a Management of Technology perspective, this study shows that emerging mobility technologies can be considered as socio-technical systems, where public discourse, user practices and institutional responses interact with each other.
The results suggest that policy responses should emphasize more on behaviour rather than targeting specific vehicle types. Also, more balanced public communication could help battle stigma and improve the alignment between public perception and riders' lived experience. Overall, this study demonstrates that managing emerging mobility technologies requires attention not only to technical characteristics but also to the social and discursive context in which they are embedded.
... Read more

Distracted driving is a significant road safety issue, with roadside advertising known to compete for drivers’ attention and potentially affect driving performance. To mitigate to potential influence on crash risk by roadside advertising, policy guidelines are in place. This thesis aims to identify the current trends in evidence regarding driver distraction and roadside advertising for ultimately revising and strengthening the Dutch framework for the placement of roadside advertising along highways. This is done by updating the scientific evidence base, reviewing international best practices, and assessing the safety impact of digital billboards. A literature review identified both new and confirmatory insights that can strengthen the evidence‑base for Dutch guidelines. Policy documents from comparable well-performing road-safety countries were also analyzed, revealing that while most frameworks are grounded in scientific evidence, their implementation varies due to pragmatic considerations. To explore the extent of potential safety effects, a before-and-after analysis was conducted on 20 Dutch digital billboards using crash data from 2014 to 2024. Results were mixed at individual sites but showed a statistically significant positive safety effect at an aggregated level, though cautious interpretation is needed, due to several methodological limitations. The thesis concludes that despite the lack conclusive evidence on risk figures, well-studied safety performance indicators and international guidance can be used for revising the Dutch framework on advertising objects along highways. ... Read more

Generative AI is rapidly becoming a key part of knowledge work, offering opportunities to increase productivity, creativity, job satisfaction, and improve learning outcomes, while also raising concerns about potential skill erosion as tasks are increasingly delegated to GenAI systems. Despite growing research on productivity, ethics, and governance, limited attention has been given to how knowledge workers manage their interaction with GenAI to sustain professional skills, which are critical for personal development, organizational efficacy, and societal resilience.

This thesis aims to enhance understanding of how GenAI impacts professional skills and whether knowledge workers self-regulate their use to counteract skill changes. Using a qualitative research approach, 38 semi-structured interviews were conducted with knowledge workers across ten sectors. Thematic analysis revealed that GenAI use can result in four distinct skill outcomes: development, maintenance, erosion, and revaluation. Crucially, these outcomes depend on the way workers engage with GenAI rather than the technology alone, with skill revaluation showing that erosion is not always perceived as harmful.

Knowledge workers employ self-regulatory strategies before, during, and after GenAI use, including setting boundaries, tailoring usage to specific situations, critically reviewing outputs, and rewriting or documenting results. Engagement in self-regulation is shaped by drivers across interactional, organizational, and societal contexts, yet organizational support for mitigating risks of skill erosion remains limited, leaving responsibility with individual workers.

By integrating insights on skill outcomes, strategies, and drivers, this study highlights how self-regulation unfolds within a complex sociotechnical system. The findings provide implications for knowledge workers, organizations, and policymakers to design interventions that foster responsible adoption of GenAI, protect professional competencies, and strengthen societal resilience. Future research should further explore organizational-level interventions, governance structures, and profession-specific experiences to ensure skill preservation in the age of GenAI. ... Read more

This study investigates whether Large Language Models (LLMs) exhibit victim blaming tendencies when analyzing traffic accident scenarios. Using a systematic factorial design, 144 road safety scenarios were tested across ChatGPT-4o and DeepSeek-V3, varying risk behavior, demographics, injury severity, and driving context. Through mixed-methods analysis of 288 responses, the research reveals that LLMs do not exhibit traditional victim blaming but demonstrate compliance-based attribution. They adapt their analytical approach based on question framing rather than maintaining consistent safety principles. When asked about prevention, models provided comprehensive systems analysis with 89.5% of suggestions targeting systemic factors. However, responsibility attribution followed context-driven patterns: 100% driver blame in private scenarios versus 69.4% company blame in work-related scenarios, regardless of demographics. The convergence of these patterns across different AI architectures suggests fundamental challenges in analytical consistency rather than model-specific biases. These findings have critical implications for AI deployment in safety-critical contexts, revealing that sophisticated responses can mask inappropriate analytical frameworks. The study contributes new theoretical concepts to AI ethics and provides evidence-based guidance for ensuring AI systems support rather than undermine advances in safety science. ... Read more

Robotic-assisted surgical methods are advancing rapidly, offering potential advantages such as improved precision, accuracy, and reduced patient recovery times. However, widespread adoption depends not only on technological advancements but also on patient acceptance and willingness to consent. Informed consent plays a crucial role in the successful integration of robotic-assisted surgery into clinical practice, making it essential to understand the factors influencing patient decision-making.

This study investigates the key factors influencing patient willingness to consent to robotic-assisted total hip replacement surgery in the Netherlands, using a direct-effects model and an extended Technology Acceptance Model (eTAM). A questionnaire-based survey was conducted to assess trust, perceived usefulness (PU), perceived complexity (PC) and willingness to consent across five different surgical scenarios with varying levels of robotic involvement and surgeon presence.

Results indicated that trust and PU showed the strongest association with willingness to consent across all scenarios, emphasizing the need for healthcare providers to prioritize transparency, building trust and discussion risks and benefits. Testing the mediating effect of showed that PU did not act as a consistent mediating variable in any of the scenarios. ANOVA results revealed significant differences between surgical scenarios, with robotic-assisted surgery performed by a surgeon receiving the highest ratings in PU, trust, and willingness to consent. Remote surgery was perceived as the most complex surgical scenario. Participant preferred autonomous robotic surgery over conventional (manual) surgery, despite higher trust and willingness scores for the latter.

Participants also had varying views on the role of technicians in robotic surgery. While many saw their presence as essential for system reliability, others associated it with potential system flaws, emphasizing the need for clear communication about their role. Additionally, most participants mentioned the need for full disclosure regarding surgical methods, reinforcing the importance of patient autonomy.

These findings provide valuable insights for healthcare providers and policymakers to improve informed consent procedures and increase the adoption of robotic-assisted surgery. By addressing patient concerns through education, transparency and building trust, healthcare providers can improve patient comfort and willingness to consent to robotic (assisted) surgery. ... Read more

This thesis explores the phenomenon of greenwashing, particularly its systemic origins and contributory factors within corporate and regulatory frameworks. Through the analysis of three prominent case studies—Volkswagen, DWS, and Shell—it demonstrates that greenwashing is not merely the result of isolated corporate actions, but a complex, multi-layered symptom of wider sociotechnical influences. The research adopts Rasmussen’s risk management framework alongside Salmon’s systems-thinking approach to identify and map out systemic failures leading to greenwashing. Findings indicate that the most influential factors originate from management policies and regulatory oversight, showcasing the critical role of internal and external governance structures. The study’s conclusions emphasize the need for stricter regulatory audits and the cultivation of transparent corporate cultures. The analysis also provides insights into the ethical implications for sustainability-focused business practices, offering a taxonomy of systemic influences that contribute to greenwashing. This work aims to inform future strategies for regulatory bodies and businesses to mitigate greenwashing and promote genuine environmental responsibility. ... Read more