Meteorological variation in daily travel behaviour: evidence from revealed preference data from the Netherlands

peer reviewedThis study investigates the meteorological variation in revealed preference travel data. The main objective of this study is to investigate the impact of weather conditions on daily activity participation (trip motives) and daily modal choices in the Netherlands. To this end, data from the Dutch National Travel Household Survey of 2008 were matched to hourly weather data provided by the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute and were complemented with thermal indices to indicate the level of thermal comfort and additional variables to indicate the seasonality of the weather conditions. Two multinomial logit–generalised estimation equations (MNL-GEE) models were constructed, one to assess the impact of weather conditions on trip motives and one to assess the effect of weather conditions on modal choice. The modelling results indicate that, depending on the travel attribute of concern, other factors might play a role. Nonetheless, the thermal component, as well as the aesthetical component and the physical component of weather play a significant role. Moreover, the parameter estimates indicate significant differences in the impact of weather conditions when different time scales are considered (e.g. daily versus hourly based). The fact that snow does not play any role at all was unexpected. This finding can be explained by the relatively low occurrence of this weather type in the study area. It is important to consider the effects of weather in travel demand modelling frameworks because this will help to achieve higher accuracy and more realistic traffic forecasts. These will in turn allow policy makers to make better long-term and short-term decisions to achieve various political goals, such as progress towards a sustainable transportation system. Further research in this respect should emphasise the role of weather conditions and activityscheduling attributes

Knowledge of the Concept Light Rail Transit: Determinants of the Cognitive Mismatch between Actual and Perceived Knowledge

peer reviewedThe Flemish public transport company “De Lijn” is planning the development of a new Light Rail network for medium range distance trips (10 to 40km). A challenge exists in the fact that the concept of Light Rail Transit (LRT) is relatively unknown in Flanders. Therefore this paper explores the knowledge of the concept ‘Light Rail Transit’ among the Flemish population. To investigate the knowledge, two separate binary logit models are estimated to explore the determinants of the overall actual knowledge and the determinants of a cognitive mismatch. The results show that age, sex, public transit use, household size, bicycle ownership and weekly number of shopping activities contribute significantly to the overall actual knowledge of the LRT-concept. Besides, cognitive mismatch is only significantly affected by age and gender. Moreover, the results reveal a serious lack of knowledge of the concept of LRT. Consequently, a successful implementation of the LRT-system in Flanders may be jeopardized and thus it is of crucial importance to raise the level of knowledge. A first option is knowledge acquisition based on experience of the transit network. In this view, it can be a good idea to develop “travel-one-day-for-free” marketing actions. Second, it is important to provide information to the travelers by contriving information campaigns based on the determinants identified by the models. How the campaigns should be constructed from an intrinsic and psychological point of view and deliberating between the methods of communication to reach the various target groups are some important considerations for further research

The dual role of weather forecasts on changes in activity-travel behavior

A deeper understanding of how human activity-travel behavior is affected by various weather conditions is essential for both policy makers and traffic managers. To unravel the ambiguity in findings reported in the literature, the main objective of this paper is to obtain an accurate assessment of how weather forecasts trigger changes in Flemish activity-travel behavior. To this end, data were collected by means of a stated adaptation experiment, which was administered both on the Internet and via traditional paper-and-pencil questionnaires. To address the main research question of this paper, two statistical techniques were adopted. The first technique is the computation of Pearson chi-square independence tests. The second approach is the estimation of a GEE-MNL-model. The results from both techniques underscore the dual role of weather forecasts on changes in activity-travel behavior. On the one hand, the results clearly illustrate the significant effect of forecasted weather; the likelihood of changes in activity-travel behavior significantly depends on the weather forecasted. On the other hand, different methods of acquiring weather information (exposure, media source, or perceived reliability) do not impact the probability of behavioral adaptations. This duality may be partially attributable to the discrepancy that exists between weather forecasts and true traffic and roadway conditions. Therefore, the implementation of a road weather information system that is directly linked to the weather forecasts is recommended

Effect of Traveler’s Nationality on Daily Travel Time Expenditure Using Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial Regression Models: Results from Belgian National Household Travel Survey

peer reviewedIn this study, data stemming from the 2010 Belgian National Household Travel Survey were used to assess the effect of a traveler’s nationality on daily travel time expenditure. Negative binomial (zero-inflated) models were estimated to isolate the effect of nationality after other contributing factors such as sociodemographics, residential characteristics, transport options, and temporal characteristics were controlled for. The results indicate that even if one controls for a series of other influencing factors, nationality plays a significant role in differences in travel time expenditure. This finding is especially relevant in the development of policy packages that are targeted at social inequalities. From a methodological perspective, methodological options—two weighting schemes and two bootstrap solutions—were presented to provide sufficient support for the conclusions. To generalize the results in further studies, an oversampling of travelers of different nationalities is strongly recommended. Future research should focus more on the underlying psychological constructs of why ethnic and cultural differences persist even if one accounts for other determinants.INTRA

Meteorological variation in travel behaviour

Weather causes a variety of impacts on the transportation system. This paper contributes to the weather-related transport literature by investigating the meteorological variation in revealed preference travel data. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of weather conditions on revealed activity participation (trip motives) and revealed modal choices in the Netherlands. To this end, data from the Dutch national travel household survey 2008 was matched to hourly weather data provided by the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute. Two GEE-MNL models are constructed, namely one for modelling the impact of weather conditions on trip motive and one to assess the effect on modal choice. The parameter estimates of the weather variables indicate that, depending on which travel attribute one focuses, other factors might play a role. Nonetheless, fog, sunshine duration and temperature have a significant impact in both models. Unexpected is the fact that snow and ice cover do not play a role at all. Nonetheless, this finding can be accounted for by the relative low occurrence of these weather types in the study area. It is important to integrate these identified impacts of weather in travel demand modelling frameworks, since this will help to achieve a higher accuracy and more realistic traffic forecasts. This allows policy makers to make better long-term and short-term decisions to achieve various political goals, such as the development towards a sustainable transportation system. Further research in this regard, should emphasize on the role of weather conditions and activity-scheduling attributes

The dual role of weather forecasts on changes in activity-travel behavior

In previous studies, conflicting results could be found regarding the impact of weather forecasts on travel decisions, e.g. Khattak and De Palma (1997) found no significant effect of acquiring forecasted weather information on the probability of adapting mode and departure time, whereas the results reported by Hagens (2005), Niina (2009) and Kilpelainen and Summala (2007) indicated that weather forecast do play an important role. Therefore this paper investigates the changes in activity-travel behavior in response to weather forecasts. The data for this study is collected by means of a stated adaptation survey, which is both administered on the internet and via a traditional paper and pencil questionnaire. In total, 595 respondents completed the survey. To obtain an optimal correspondence between the true population and the sample weights are assigned to the observation. Results indicate that weather information plays a dual role. On the one hand people do alter their activity-travel behavior in response to weather information, albeit these changes are not as pronounced when compared to actual weather. On the other hand the extent (frequency and media type) to which people are exposed to these weather forecasts appears to play only a marginal role. This dual role weather information plays in this study appears to be supported by the conflicting international literature and therefore revealing the underlying psychological motivations to change one's activity-travel behavior is a key challenge for further research

Analyzing Access, Egress, and Main Transport Mode of Public Transit Journeys: Evidence from the Flemish National Household Travel Survey

peer reviewedThe primary objective of this paper is to explore the influence of socio-demographic and contextual variables on the multimodal character of public transit journeys. Accounting for multimodality in public transit journeys is important from a demand modeling point of view, especially in the assessment of new projected public transit infrastructure. To meet the objective, data from the national household travel survey of Flanders (Belgium) is analyzed. Based on 2,202 public transit journeys, the main public transit mode choice (bus/tram/metro or train) and access/egress mode choice are simultaneously estimated using a multinomial logit model, and by explicitly making a distinction between unimodal and multimodal transit journeys. The results indicate that various socio-demographical (e.g. age, gender, level of education, household income) and contextual factors (e.g. journey distance, journey motive, urbanization degree, car availability) significantly influence the joint decision process. Total journey distance and car availability are identified as the most important explanatory variables. In terms of model performance, the model appears to yield satisfactory predictions, justifying the integration of the model in more general demand modeling frameworks

Assessing the effect of traveler's nationality on daily travel time expenditure using Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial Regression models: results from the Belgian national household travel survey.

peer reviewedIn this paper, the effect of traveler's nationality on daily travel time expenditure is assessed using data stemming from the 2010 Belgian national household travel survey. In particular, different (zero-inflated) negative binomial models were estimated to isolate the effect of nationality, after controlling for other contributing factors such as socio-demographics, residential characteristics, transport options and temporal characteristics. The results indicate that, even if one controls for a series of other influencing factors, nationality plays a significant role in differences in travel time expenditure. This finding is especially relevant in the development of policy packages that are targeted to tackle social inequalities. From a methodological perspective, different methodological options, i.e. two weighting schemes and two bootstrap solutions, were presented to provide sufficient support for the conclusions. In order to generalize the results in further studies, an oversampling of travelers with a different nationality is strongly recommended. Future research should focus more on the underlying psychological constructs of why ethnic and cultural differences persist, even if one accounts for other determinants.INTRA

Identifying the Determinants of Light Rail Mode Choice for Medium/Long Distance Trips: Results from a Stated Preference Study

peer reviewedThe introduction of new public transport systems can influence society in a multitude of ways, ranging from modal choices and the environment to economic growth. This paper examines the determinants of light rail mode choice for medium/long distance trips (10-40km) for a new light rail system in Flanders, Belgium. To investigate these choices, the effects of various transport system specific factors (i.e. travel cost, in-vehicle travel time, transit punctuality, waiting time, access/egress time, transfers, and the availability of empty seats) as well as the travelers’ personal traits, are analyzed using an alternating logistic regression model, which explicitly takes into account the correlated responses for binary data. The data used for the analysis stem from a stated preference survey which was conducted in Flanders, Belgium. The modeling results yield findings that are in line with literature: most transport system specific factors as well as socio-economic variables, attitudinal factors, perceptions and the frequency of using public transport contribute significantly to the preference of light rail transit. In particular, it is shown that the use of light rail is strongly influenced by travel cost and in-vehicle travel time and to a lesser extent by waiting and access/egress time. It also appeared that seat availability plays a more important role than transfers in the decision process to choose light rail transit. The findings of this paper can be used by policy makers as a frame of reference to make light rail transit more successful