Computational Process Modelling of Disaggregate Travel Behaviour

Abstract

It is common for researchers adopting an activity based approach to travel behaviour to differentiate between behaviours that are routinized and behaviours that result from deliberate choice. For example, a significantly large part of work-trip behaviour is routinized; individuals tend to use the same mode for each trip, to leave their home base at approximately the same time, to aim at arriving at approximately the same time at their work place, and to follow the same route and the same path segments that make up that route. Some other trip purposes are similarly routinized such as trips for religious purposes, and trips for medical or health related reasons — routinized in the sense of using the same mode and following the same path, even though the times at which travel may be undertaken might vary because of temporal differences in the scheduling of appointments by health professionals. Other trips such as grocery or food shopping may be routinized to a lesser extent. Instead of choosing a single destination and following a repetitive path to that destination, several alternative destinations may be kept as part of a feasible alternative set. Trip making on any given day then becomes more of a deliberate choice both in terms of selecting a specific destination and in terms of selecting the travel path. Variation can also occur in terms of travel mode. Many other trip purposes fall within the deliberated choice purview. In particular trips for social or recreational purposes, trips to meet with friends, trips undertaken for the purpose of dining away from home, business trips, and so on, all may be scheduled with different episodic intervals or frequencies, different lengths or durations, different destinations, different temporal units, different priorities, different sequences, as well as being undertaken either as single purpose or multiple purpose trips with single stop or multiple stop destinations.