The evening commute with cars and transit: Duality results and user equilibrium for the combined morning and evening peaks

This paper extends Vickrey’s (1969) commute problem for commuters wishing to pass a bottleneck for both cars and transit that share finite road capacity. In addition to this more general framework considering two modes, the paper focuses on the evening rush, when commuters travel from work to home. Commuters choose which mode to use and when to travel in order to minimize the generalized cost of their own trips, including queueing delay and penalties for deviation from a preferred schedule of arrival and departure to and from work. The user equilibrium for the isolated morning and evening commutes are shown to be asymmetric because the schedule penalty in the morning is the difference between the departure and wished curves, and the schedule penalty in the evening is the difference between the arrival and wished curves. It is shown that the system optimum in the morning and evening peaks are symmetric because queueing delay is eliminated and the optimal arrival curves are the same as the departure curves.The paper then considers both the morning and evening peaks together for a single mode bottleneck (all cars) with identical travelers that share the same wished times. For a schedule penalty function of the morning departure and evening arrival times that is positive definite and has certain properties, a user equilibrium is shown to exist in which commuters travel in the same order in both peaks. The result is used to illustrate the user equilibrium for two cases: (i) commuters have decoupled schedule preferences in the morning and evening and (ii) commuters must work a fixed shift length but have flexibility when to start. Finally, a special case is considered with cars and transit: commuters have the same wished order in the morning and evening peaks. Commuters must use the same mode in both directions, and the complete user equilibrium solution reveals the number of commuters using cars and transit and the period in the middle of each rush when transit is used.     

An analysis of the commuter departure time decision

Transportation planners and transit operators alike have become increasingly aware of the need to diffuse the concentration of peak period travel in an effort to improve gasoline economy and reduce peak load requirements. An evaluation of the potential effectiveness of strategies directed to achieve this end requires an understanding of factors which affect commuter trip timing decisions. The research discussed in this article addresses this particular problem through the development and estimation of a commuter departure time (to work) choice model.A number of conclusions were drawn based on the departure time model results and related analyses. It was found that work schedule flexibility, mode, occupation, income, age, and transportation level of service all influence departure time choice. The uncertainty in work arrival time and the consequences of various work arrival times may also be determinants of commuter departure time choice.The estimated model represents improvements over previous work in that it more explicitly considers work arrival time uncertainty and travelers' perceived loss associated with varying work arrival times, and additional socio-demographic factors which can potentially affect departure time choice. Furthermore, the estimated model includes consideration of transit commuters, in addition to single occupant auto and carpool work travelers. The inclusion of transit commuters represents a particularly important contribution for policy analysis, since the model could potentially be used to study the effect of service and employment policies on transit system peak load requirements.     

Values,attitudes and travel behavior: a hierarchical latent variable mixed logit model of travel mode choice

Values lie at the heart of an individual’s belief system, serving as prototypes from which attitudes and behaviors are subsequently manufactured. Attitudes and behaviors may evolve over time, but values represent a set of more enduring beliefs. This study examines the influence of values on travel mode choice behavior. It is argued that personal values influence individual attitudes towards different alternative attributes, which in turn impact modal choices. Using data from a sample of 519 German commuters drawn from a consumer panel, the study estimates an integrated choice and latent variable model of travel mode choice that allows for hierarchical relationships between the latent variables and flexible substitution patterns across the modal alternatives. Results from the empirical application support the value-attitude-behavior hierarchical model of cognition, and provide insights to planners and policy-makers on how better to sell public transit as a means of travel.     

Behavioral adjustments and equity effects of congestion pricing: Analysis of morning commutes during the Stockholm Trial

This paper assesses the horizontal and vertical equity effects of the Stockholm Trial with Congestion Pricing for morning commuters, in terms of both travel behavioral adjustments and welfare effects, as a result of the toll’s direct effects and the behavioral adjustments. We consider specifically two behavioral adjustments: mode choice and departure time choice. Initial car drivers crossing the toll cordon had a 15 percentage-points higher rate of switching to public transit as compared with those not crossing the cordon. We also find some evidence of peak spreading, in particular toward a later departure time, as a result of the charging scheme, but most people choose a departure time within 15 min both before and during the trial. In the welfare analysis, we found no clear pattern of increasing burden by either increasing income or decreasing income, and the increase in the Gini Coefficient was insignificant. We also found no significant difference in either the mode-switching behavior or the average welfare effect for women versus for men.     

Modeling commuting mode choice jointly with work start time and work duration

This paper presents a joint trivariate discrete-continuous-continuous model for commuters’ mode choice, work start time and work duration. The model is designed to capture correlations among random components influencing these decisions. For empirical investigation, the model is estimated using a data set collected in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) in 2001. Considering the fact that work duration involves medium- to long-term decision making compared to short-term activity scheduling decisions, work duration is considered endogenous to work start time decisions. The empirical model reveals many behavioral details of commuters’ mode choice, work start time and duration decisions. The primary objective of the model is to predict workers’ work schedules according to mode choice, which is considered a skeletal activity schedule in activity-based travel demand models. However, the empirical model reveals many behavioral details of workers’ mode choices and work scheduling. Independent application of the model for travel demand management policy evaluations is also promising, as it provides better value in terms of travel time estimates.     

Evolution of latent modal captivity and mode choice patterns for commuting trips: A longitudinal analysis using repeated cross-sectional datasets

This paper presents an investigation of the temporal evolution of commuting mode choice preference structures. It contributes to two specific modelling issues: latent modal captivity and working with multiple repeated crossectional datasets. In this paper latent modal captivity refers to captive reliance on a specific mode rather than all feasible modes. Three household travel survey datasets collected in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) over a ten-year time period are used for empirical modelling. Datasets collected in different years are pooled and separate year-specific scale parameters and coefficients of key variables are estimated for different years. The empirical model clearly explains that there have been significant changes in latent modal captivity and the mode choice preference structures for commuting in the GTHA. Changes have occurred in the unexplained component of latent captivities, in transportation cost perceptions, and in the scales of commuting mode choice preferences. The empirical model also demonstrates that pooling multiple repeated cross-sectional datasets is an efficient way of capturing behavioural changes over time. Application of the proposed mode choice model for practical policy analysis and forecasting will ensure accurate forecasting and an enhanced understanding of policy impacts.     

Heterogeneity in departure time preferences,flexibility and schedule constraints

Transportation - This study develops a latent class choice model of departure time preferences for morning commute trips by car. The model is empirically evaluated using a sample of car commuters...     

Influences on commuter trip departure time decisions in Singapore

This paper provides empirical evidence to support the widely held view that institutional factors such as official work start times and staggered working hours are powerful policy tools in traffic management and in influencing travel behaviour. This approach is to be preferred over continued investment in infrastructure given the scarcity of land in Singapore. A more efficient use of existing infrastructure could be achieved by spreading peak travel. Full utilisation of the Mass Rapid Transit will depend on changing the commuter's perception on multi mode travel in addition to using public transport. While many studies have been carried out on modal choice, research on commuter trip departure decisions have been few and remain largely least understood. This paper employs multinomial logit and simultaneous nested logit analysis to model the choice of departure time (using household data collected in Singapore in 1983). Preliminary findings show that schedule delay, travel cost, and journey time to be important influences on commuter's choice of trip departure time to work. Some difficulties are highlighted and suggestions for further research are made.     

Household-level commuting mode choices,car allocation and car ownership level choices of two-worker households: the case of the city of Toronto

The paper presents a comprehensive investigation on household level commuting mode, car allocation and car ownership level choices of two-worker households in the City of Toronto. A joint econometric model and a household travel survey dataset are used for empirical investigations. Empirical models reveal that significant substitution patterns exist between auto driving and all other mode choices in two-worker households. It is revealed that, female commuters do not prefer auto driving, but in case of a one car (and two commuters with driving licenses) household, a female commuter gets more preference for auto driving option than the male commuter. Reverse commuting (commuting in opposite direction of home to central business district) plays a critical role on household level car allocation choices and in defining the stability of commuting behaviour of two-worker households. Two worker households in higher income zones and with longer commuting distances tend to have higher car ownership levels than others. However, higher transit accessibility to jobs reduces household car ownership levels. The study reveals that both increasing two worker households and reverse commuting would increase dependency on private car for commuting.     

Pricing scheme design of ridesharing program in morning commute problem

This paper examines the dynamic user equilibrium of the morning commute problem in the presence of ridesharing program. Commuters simultaneously choose departure time from home and commute mode among three roles: solo driver, ridesharing driver, and ridesharing rider. Considering the congestion evolution over time, we propose a time-varying compensation scheme to maintain a positive ridesharing ridership at user equilibrium. To match the demand and the supply of ridesharing service over time, the compensation scheme should be set according to the inconvenience cost functions and the out-of-pocket cost functions. When the price charged per time unit is higher than the inconvenience cost per time unit perceived by the ridesharing drivers, the ridesharing participants will travel at the center of peak hours and solo drivers will commute at the two tails. Within the feasible region with positive ridership, the ridesharing program can reduce the congestion and all the commuters will be better off. To support system optimum (SO), we derive a time-varying toll combined with a flat ridesharing price from eliminating queuing delay. Under SO toll, the ridesharing program can attract more participants and have an enlarged feasible region. This reveals that the commuters are more tolerant to the inconvenience caused by sharing a ride at SO because of the lower travel time. Compared with no-toll equilibrium, both overall congestion and individual travel cost are further reduced at SO.     

Expirable parking reservations for managing morning commute with parking space constraints

When total parking supply in an urban downtown area is insufficient, morning commuters would choose their departure times not only to trade off bottleneck congestion and schedule delays, but also to secure a parking space. Recent studies found that an appropriate combination of reserved and unreserved parking spaces can spread the departures of those morning commuters and hence reduce their total travel cost. To further mitigate both traffic congestion and social cost from competition for parking, this study considers a parking reservation scheme with expiration times, where commuters with a parking reservation have to arrive at parking spaces for the reservation before a predetermined expiration time. We first show that if all parking reservations have the same expiration time, it is socially preferable to set the reservations to be non-expirable, i.e., without expiration time. However, if differentiated expiration times are properly designed, the total travel cost can be further reduced as compared with the reservation scheme without expiration time, since the peak will be further smoothed out. We explore socially desirable equilibrium flow patterns under the parking reservation scheme with differentiated expiration times. Finally, efficiencies of the reservation schemes are examined.     

Transportation serviceability analysis for metropolitan commuting corridors based on modal choice modeling

Major commuting corridors in metropolitan areas generally comprise multiple transportation modes for commuters, such as transit (subways or buses), private vehicles, or park-and-ride combinations. During the morning peak hour, the commuters would choose one of the available transportation modes to travel through the corridors from rural/suburban living areas to urban working areas. This paper introduces a concept of transportation serviceability to evaluate a transportation mode’s service status in a specific link, route, road, or network during a certain period. The serviceability can be measured by the possibility that travelers choose a specific type of transportation service at a certain travel cost. The commuters’ modal-choice possibilities are calculated using a stochastic equilibrium model based on general travel cost. The modeling results illustrate how transportation serviceability is influenced by background traffic flow in a corridor, value of comfort for railway mode, and parking fee distribution.     

Measuring risk aversion to guide transportation policy: Contexts,incentives, and respondents

Road pricing may provide a solution to increasing traffic congestion in metropolitan areas. Route, departure time and travel mode choices depend on risk attitudes as commuters perceive the options as having uncertain effects on travel times. We propose that Experimental Economics methods can deliver data that uses real consequences and where the context can be varied by the researcher. The approach relies on the controlled manipulation of contexts, similar to what is done in the Stated Choice approach, but builds in actual consequences, similar to the Revealed Preference approach. This paper investigates some of the trade-offs between the cost of conducting Experimental Economics studies and the behavioral responses elicited. In particular, we compare responses to traditional lottery choice tasks to the route choice tasks in simulated driving environments. We also compare students (a low cost convenient participant pool) to field participants recruited from the driving population. While we see initial differences across our treatment groups, we find that their risk taking behavior converge with minimal repetition.     

Investigation of the use of smartphone applications for trip planning and travel outcomes

This paper explores the use of smartphone applications for trip planning and travel outcomes using data derived from a survey conducted in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2015. The study provides empirical evidence of relationships of smartphone use for trip planning (e.g. departure time, destination, mode choice, coordinating trips and performing tasks online) and resulting travel outcomes (e.g. vehicle kilometers traveled, social gathering, new place visits, and group trips) and associated factors. Several sets of factors such as socio-economic characteristics and travel characteristics are tested and interpreted. Results suggest that smartphone applications mostly influence younger individuals’ trip planning decisions. Transit pass owners are the frequent users of smartphone applications for trip planning. Findings suggest that transit pass owners commonly use smartphone applications for deciding departure times and mode choices. The study also identifies the limited impact of smartphone application use on reducing travel outcomes, such as vehicle kilometers traveled. The highest impact is in visiting new places (a 48.8% increase). The study essentially offers an original in-depth understanding of how smartphone applications are affecting everyday travel.     

Comparing travel mode and trip chain choices between holidays and weekdays

Choices of travel mode and trip chain as well as their interplays have long drawn the interests of researchers. However, few studies have examined the differences in the travel behaviors between holidays and weekdays. This paper compares the choice of travel mode and trip chain between holidays and weekdays tours using travel survey data from Beijing, China. Nested Logit (NL) models with alternative nesting structures are estimated to analyze the decision process of travelers. Results show that there are at least three differences between commuting-based tours on weekdays and non-commuting tours on holidays. First, the decision structures in weekday and holiday tours are opposite. In weekday tours people prefer to decide on trip chain pattern prior to choosing travel mode, whereas in holiday tours travel mode is chosen first. Second, holiday tours show stronger dependency on cars than weekday tours. Third, travelers on holidays are more sensitive to changes in tour time than to the changes in tour cost, while commuters on weekdays are more sensitive to tour cost. Findings are helpful for improving travel activity modeling and designing differential transportation system management strategies for weekdays and holidays.     

A combined activity/travel choice model for congested road networks with queues

This paper presents a combined activity/travel choice model and proposes a flow-swapping method for obtaining the model's dynamic user equilibrium solution on congested road network with queues. The activities of individuals are characterized by given temporal utility profiles. Three typical activities, which can be observed in morning peak period, namely at-home activity, non-work activity on the way from home to workplace and work-purpose activity, will be considered in the model. The former two activities always occur together with the third obligatory activity. These three activities constitute typical activity/travel patterns in time-space dimension. At the equilibrium, each combined activity/travel pattern, in terms of chosen location/route/departure time, should have identical generalized disutility (or utility) experienced actually. This equilibrium can be expressed as a discrete-time, finite-dimensional variational inequality formulation and then converted to an equivalent "zero-extreme value" minimization problem. An algorithm, which iteratively adjusts the non-work activity location, corresponding route and departure time choices to reach an extreme point of the minimization problem, is proposed. A numerical example with a capacity constrained network is used to illustrate the performance of the proposed model and solution algorithm.     

On the development of time period and mode choice models for use in large scale modelling forecasting systems

A substantial amount of research is presently being carried out to understand the complexities involved in modelling the choice of departure time and mode of travel. Many of these models tend to be far too complex and far too data intensive to be of use for application in large scale model forecasting systems, where socio-economic detail is limited and detailed scheduling information is rarely available in the model implementation structure. Therefore, these models generally work on the basis of a set of mutually exclusive time periods, rather than making use of continuous departure time information. Two important questions need to be addressed in the use of such models, namely the specification used for the time periods (in terms of length), and the ordering of the levels of nesting, representing the difference in the sensitivities to shifts in departure time and changes in the mode of travel. This paper aims to provide some answers to these two questions on the basis of an extensive analysis making use of three separate Stated Preference (SP) datasets, collected in the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands. In the analysis, it has proved possible to develop models which allow reasonably sound predictions to be made of these choices. With a few exceptions, the results show higher substitution between alternative time periods than between alternative modes. Furthermore, the results show that the degree of substitution between time periods is reduced when making use of a more coarse specification of the time periods. These results are intended for use by practitioners, and form an important part of the evidence base supporting the UK Department for Transport’s advice for practical UK studies in the WebTAG system.¹     

Motorcycle-based adolescents’ travel behaviour during the school morning commute and the effect of intra-household interaction on departure time and mode choice

We hypothesise that intra-household interaction influences home departure time and mode choice for the morning commute. In Indonesia, over 71% of vehicles on the road are motorcycles. This fact increases the significance of household interaction in influencing transport mode choice since the simplicity of the motorcycle allows a great degree of versatility in regard to multiple family member transport. To emphasise this point, our study focuses on the unique travel behaviour of adolescents during the school morning commute which, due to the use of the motorcycle, is a combination of the travel behaviour of accompanied children and escorting adults. Our study discovers that adolescents are likely to shift their school arrival time very early or close to the designated starting time in relation to motorcycle-based parental escort to school. In regard to mode choice, adolescent students prefer to be escorted by motorcycle rather than take public transport.     

Working on the train: from ‘dead time’ to productive and vital time

The conventional approach to the study of travel time is to see it as ??dead time??, i.e. time that should be minimized. In this paper, we study time-use on trains, especially in relation to the use of information and communication technology for work purposes. The empirical results are based on a survey of rail travellers in Norway in 2008. It was found that a high proportion of ordinary commuters and business people work on board while travelling by train, i.e. 35?% of commuters and 43?% of business people. Nearly every fourth commuter gets their travel time approved as working hours. Most respondents had some sort of electronic device with them on board, and 25?% travelling for work-related purposes use a laptop computer. Only 10?% report that their travel time is of no use. Knowledge of how travel time is utilized is indispensable in the discussion about the evaluation of travel time in cost-benefit analysis. The use of travel time can also be important for choice of transport mode in the assessment of travel time versus work options.     

Accommodating preference heterogeneity in commuting mode choice: an empirical investigation in Shaoxing,China

A latent class model is developed to accommodate preference heterogeneity across commuters with respect to their mode choice between electric bike, private car, and public bus within the context of China. A three-segment solution – ‘electric bike individuals’, ‘private car addicts’, and ‘public bus enthusiasts’ – is identified, each characterized by heterogeneous preferences regarding specific mode attributes and unique socio-demographic profile. The choice model confirms the determinative effects of perceived alternative attributes on commuting mode choice, while the traditionally used objective attributes – travel time and cost – are found to have relatively small influences. The membership model provides solid explanations for these segment-specific preferences. This study provides a better understanding of the nature of mode choice behavior, which can be useful for strategies tailored to a specific segment in order to promote the use of sustainable transport modes.