Mental map of daily activity travel routines

Abstract

In most activity bases models of travel demand, daily travel choices are outcomes of a process in which alternatives are considered and choice aspects are valued and weighed. However, qualitative research has shown that individual daily activity travel decisions such as which activity to perform, where to do it and how to get there are mainly routine choices. These routines can be expressed as a repertoire of fixed scripts in which specific situations automatically trigger certain combinations of choices without much consideration. Supported by routine decision modeling literature a formal model is developed to represent an individual mental repertoire and map it as a Bayesian Inference Network (BIN). In a qualitative description of work related travel routines, composing elements of the BIN are identified to start with. Next, the model's structure is explained in detail and parameters are estimated. Finally, different scenarios are calculated. Initial tests show promising results.