Development of a Paratransit Microsimulation Patron Accessibility Analysis Tool for Small and Medium Sized Communities

ABSTRACT Paratransit is a critical form of transportation for mobility-impaired, low income, and small/ medium sized communities. Paratransit systems face many challenges that restrict how well they can serve their community, including limited funding, aging fleets, limited to no level of service standard assessments, and few practical modeling/planning practices. This paper discusses a transferable paratransit microsimulation patron accessibility analysis tool designed to address these challenges. The tool calculates paratransit patron accessibility (defined as paratransit patrons' perceived ease of access to reach desired activities and destinations) by simulating and measuring daily paratransit patron travel patterns based on service fleet and region information. The tool further allows providers to evaluate patron accessibility for any combination of population groups, travel purposes, and times of day. Transit providers can use the tool to determine how well paratransit patrons are served and the most efficient ways to improve service. The microsimulation framework, including the system of simulation models, the supporting data, and application to Brownsville, Texas are described in detail. LaMondia and Bhat

A Conceptual and Methodological Framework of Leisure Activity Loyalty Accommodating the Travel Context

At the time of publication J.J. LaMondia was at Auburn University and C.R. Bhat was at the University of Texas at Austin.As leisure travel continues to grow, it has become a critical subject for planners and decisionmakers since it significantly impacts regional economic and social development as well as contributes to emission levels and congestion. Despite being a significant percentage of our travel, however, leisure travel behavior is still not very well understood. The goal of this paper is to contribute to our understanding of leisure activity participation by considering leisure activity loyalty within the travel context. In particular, this study focuses on one specific dimension of travel context: travel extent (i.e. whether an individual participates in a leisure activity on a daily versus a long-distance basis). As such, this paper first introduces a unified conceptual framework for measuring leisure activity loyalties within a travel context, based on two distinct dynamics of leisure loyalty behavior - destination attachment and activity involvement. Additionally, this paper uses a unique 2001 NHTS dataset comprised of households’ daily and long-distance leisure activities to undertake a unique empirical analysis of five distinct leisure activities using the conceptual framework and a copula-based model methodology. The findings confirmed that households demonstrate significant loyalties to travel contexts across all leisure activities, especially resting and sightseeing.Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineerin

A Study of Visitors' Leisure Travel Behavior in the Northwest Territories of Canada

At the time of publication J.J. LaMondia was at Auburn University; and C.R. Bhat was at the University of Texas at Austin.As long-distance leisure travel has shifted to being broader and more of an amalgam of different activity types, it has become critical for planners to understand what combinations of activities individuals will most likely participate in during a leisure trip. Accordingly, this study models travelers' participation in any combination of eight leisure trip activities. The analysis utilizes activity participation data from a tourist exit survey collected from the Northwest Territories in Canada. A Multivariate Binary Probit model system, with correlation across every pair of leisure activities, is estimated using a Composite Marginal Likelihood method. The empirical analysis results emphasize that travelers often combine specific sets of leisure activities together during tourism travel. However, which sets of activities get paired together depends greatly on travelers' experience, travel companions, and individual concerns.Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineerin

Development of a paratransit microsimulation patron accessibility analysis tool for small and medium sized communities

Paratransit is a critical form of transportation for mobility-impaired, low income, and small/ medium sized communities. Paratransit systems face many challenges that restrict how well they can serve their community, including limited funding, aging fleets, limited to no level of service standard assessments, and few practical modeling/planning practices. This paper discusses a transferable paratransit microsimulation patron accessibility analysis tool designed to address these challenges. The tool calculates paratransit patron accessibility (defined as paratransit patrons' perceived ease of access to reach desired activities and destinations) by simulating and measuring daily paratransit patron travel patterns based on service fleet and region information. The tool further allows providers to evaluate patron accessibility for any combination of population groups, travel purposes, and times of day. Transit providers can use the tool to determine how well paratransit patrons are served and the most efficient ways to improve service. The microsimulation framework, including the system of simulation models, the supporting data, and application to Brownsville, Texas are described in detail.Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineerin

Traveler Behavior and Values Analysis in the Context of Vacation Destination and Travel Mode Choices: European Union Case Study

The tourism industry has a dramatic impact on the world's economy and development. For this reason, it is important to study vacation traveler behavior, including where individuals travel on vacation and what travel mode they use to get there. This study uses the unique Eurobarometer vacation travel survey to jointly model travelers' choice of holiday destination and travel mode, while also considering an extensive array of stated motivation-based preference and value factors. The study further builds on the existing literature by applying the model to a large-scale travel market characterized by multiple origins and multiple destinations within the European Union. The empirical results indicate the important effects of nationality, traveler demographics, travel companionship arrangement, traveler preferences and values, and trip/destination characteristics on holiday destination and travel mode choice. These results have important policy implications not only for each country within the European Union, but also for countries and regions around the world.Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineerin