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Understanding variability, habit and the effect of long period activity plan in modal choices: a day to day, week to week analysis on panel data

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Abstract

Understanding variability in individual behaviour is crucial for the comprehension of travel patterns and for the development and evaluation of planning policies. But, with only one notable exception, there are no studies on the intrinsic variability in the individual preferences for mode choices in absence of external changes in the transport infrastructures. This requires using continuous panel data. Few papers have studied mode choice with continuous panel data but mainly focused on the panel correlation. In this work we use a six-week travel diary survey to study the intrinsic variability in the individual preferences for mode choices, the effect of long period plans and habitual behaviour in the daily mode choices. Mixed logit models are estimated that account for the above effects as well as for systematic and random heterogeneity over individual preferences and responses. We also account for correlation over several time periods. Our results suggest that individual tastes for time and cost are fairly stable but there is a significant systematic and random heterogeneity around these mean values and in the preferences for the different alternatives. We found that there is a strong inertia effect in mode choice that increases with (or is reinforced by) the number of time the same tour is repeated. The sequence of mode choice made is influenced by the duration of the activity and the weekly structure of the activities

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Notes

  1. As suggested by a reviewer, this kind of inertia effects can cause potential endogeneity issue. A more accurate specification and the definition of inertia in terms of frequency allows distinguishing better the effect of the inertia due to the repetition of the choice over time from the unknown preference for that specific alternative.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Transport, Technical University of Denmark, Bygningstorvet 116, Building 116 B, 2800, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

    Elisabetta Cherchi

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA

    Cinzia Cirillo

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  1. Elisabetta Cherchi
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  2. Cinzia Cirillo
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Correspondence to Elisabetta Cherchi.

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Cherchi, E., Cirillo, C. Understanding variability, habit and the effect of long period activity plan in modal choices: a day to day, week to week analysis on panel data. Transportation 41, 1245–1262 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-014-9549-y

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