Jointly modelling activity start time, travel mode, companionship, and destination location choices

Abstract

Activity-travel decisions, including time use (i.e. activity start time), travel choices (i.e. mode and companionship), and destination location choices are interdependent and complex in nature. They are often controlled by observed factors such as sociodemographic, vehicle ownership, built environment, land use, and unobserved factors like attitude, preference, or habits which typically are not captured in the survey data. To accommodate these complex interactions and capture trade-offs among the time use-travel-land use choices, this study proposes a joint discrete choice model by introducing unobserved factors that are common to them. The model results confirm the presence of complex interdependencies among these choice dimensions. In addition, this study highlights the contribution of observed and unobserved factors introduced in the model by calculating the total variance of utility differences. Lastly, this study provides behavioural insights on the activity-travel patterns, which can be further used to develop robust travel demand management policies.