TY - JOUR
T1 - Expanding the positive utility of travel through weeklong tracking
T2 - Within-person and multi-environment variability of ideal travel time
AU - Le, Huyen T.K.
AU - Buehler, Ralph
AU - Fan, Yingling
AU - Hankey, Steve
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2020/4
Y1 - 2020/4
N2 - Travel has been found to have a positive utility—often measured as a desire for non-zero travel time. Although past studies have found that desired travel time varies by trip attributes, they often focused on a single trip purpose (e.g., commute) or single time point (e.g., peak period of one day) and rarely captured variation within individuals and across multiple travel environments. To address these limitations, we employed a smartphone-based travel behavior survey of 186 users making 4397 trips in the Washington, DC, and Blacksburg, VA metropolitan areas. For each user, multiple trips were recorded and the user was asked to repeatedly report on the ideal travel time for each trip. We found that desired travel time varied across different trip environmental characteristics and purposes. Ideal travel time was longer for active travel trips, leisure trips, weekend trips, and when the user conducted activities during trips (e.g., talking, using the phone, looking at the landscape) and traveled with companions. Our study suggests the need for more realistic estimation of the value of travel time savings and the need for quantifying the effect of multitasking during travel on people's willingness to reduce travel time. Practitioners should also consider providing better urban infrastructure for pedestrians and bicyclists to fulfill their trips, as their ideal travel times closely match actual travel times.
AB - Travel has been found to have a positive utility—often measured as a desire for non-zero travel time. Although past studies have found that desired travel time varies by trip attributes, they often focused on a single trip purpose (e.g., commute) or single time point (e.g., peak period of one day) and rarely captured variation within individuals and across multiple travel environments. To address these limitations, we employed a smartphone-based travel behavior survey of 186 users making 4397 trips in the Washington, DC, and Blacksburg, VA metropolitan areas. For each user, multiple trips were recorded and the user was asked to repeatedly report on the ideal travel time for each trip. We found that desired travel time varied across different trip environmental characteristics and purposes. Ideal travel time was longer for active travel trips, leisure trips, weekend trips, and when the user conducted activities during trips (e.g., talking, using the phone, looking at the landscape) and traveled with companions. Our study suggests the need for more realistic estimation of the value of travel time savings and the need for quantifying the effect of multitasking during travel on people's willingness to reduce travel time. Practitioners should also consider providing better urban infrastructure for pedestrians and bicyclists to fulfill their trips, as their ideal travel times closely match actual travel times.
KW - ICT
KW - Mobile app
KW - Multitasking
KW - Positive utility of travel
KW - Satisfaction
KW - Travel demand
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2020.102679
DO - 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2020.102679
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85080093683
SN - 0966-6923
VL - 84
JO - Journal of Transport Geography
JF - Journal of Transport Geography
M1 - 102679
ER -