ABSTRACT Title of Document: MODELING VEHICLE OWNERSHIP DECISIONS IN MARYLAND: A PRELIMINARY STATED-PREFERENCE SURVEY AND MODEL Michael Maness, Master of Science, 2010 Directed By: Assistant Professor Cinzia Cirillo Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering In the near future, the culmination of new vehicle technologies, greater competition in the energy markets, and government policies to fight pollution and reduce energy consumption will result in changes in the United States’ vehicle marketplace. This project proposes to create a stated preference (SP) survey along with discrete choice models to predict future demand for electric, hybrid, alternative fuel, and gasoline vehicles. The survey is divided into three parts: socioeconomics, revealed preference (RP), and SP sections. The socioeconomics portion asks respondents about themselves and their households. The RP portion asks about household’s current vehicles. The SP section presents respondents with various hypothetical scenarios over a future five-year period using one of three game designs. The designs correspond to: changing vehicle technology, fuel pricing and availability, and taxation policy. With these changes to the vehicle marketplace, respondents are asked whether they will keep or replace their current vehicles and if he will purchase a new vehicle and its type. To facilitate the design and administering of the survey, a web survey framework, JULIE, was created specifically for creating stated preference surveys. A preliminary trial of the survey was conducted in September and October 2010 with a sample size of 141 respondents. Using the SP results from this preliminary trial, a multinomial logit model is used to estimate future vehicle ownership by vehicle type. The models show that the survey design allows for estimation of important parameters in vehicle choice. MODELING VEHICLE OWNERSHIP DECISIONS IN MARYLAND: A PRELIMINARY STATED-PREFERENCE SURVEY AND MODEL By Michael Maness Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science 2010 Advisory Committee: Professor Cinzia Cirillo, Chair Professor Lei Zhang Professor David Cantor © Copyright by Michael Maness 2010 Dedication This paper is dedicated to my parents, Helen and Michael Maness, who have always been supportive and knew that I could do great things. ii Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge my advisor, Cinzia Cirillo, for the assistance she has given me in my academic progression and research endeavors. She has been a valuable guide and reference over the past four years. I would also like to thank the other members of my thesis committee, Lei Zhang and David Cantor, for their help and assistance. Dr. Zhang has always offered his advice and guidance when needed and Dr. Cantor provided me with an excellent introduction to the field of survey methodology. Additionally I would like to thank my friends and family for their support. And thanks to my parents for that box of traffic sign magnets when I was four years old. I also want to acknowledge Julie Pflager for whom JULIE was named after as a joke, but I never got around to changing the name. Special thanks to everyone who helped in administering the survey: Cinzia Cirillo, Pratt Hetrakul, Yangwen Liu, Bing Qi, Neyal Serulle, Jean-Michel Tremblay, and Renting Xu. iii Table of Contents Dedication ..................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ......................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ............................................................................................................... vi List of Figures ............................................................................................................. vii Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Objectives of the Research .................................................................................. 1 1.2 Overview ............................................................................................................. 3 Chapter 2: Literature Review ........................................................................................ 4 2.1 Stated Preference Studies .................................................................................... 4 2.2 Other Approaches to Analyzing Vehicle Preference ........................................ 11 2.3 Choice Modeling in Vehicle Preference ........................................................... 11 2.4 Studies about Vehicle Technology ................................................................... 12 Chapter 3: Technology Background ........................................................................... 13 3.1 Vehicle Technology .......................................................................................... 13 3.2 Fuel Pricing ....................................................................................................... 18 Chapter 4: Survey Design & Methodology ................................................................ 19 4.1 Household Characteristics ................................................................................ 19 4.2 Current Vehicle ................................................................................................. 20 4.3 Stated Preference .............................................................................................. 20 4.3.1 Game 1 – Vehicle Technology .................................................................. 21 4.3.2 Game 2 – Fuel Technology ........................................................................ 26 4.3.3 Game 3 – Taxation Policy.......................................................................... 29 4.4 Survey Methodology ......................................................................................... 33 4.4.1 Survey Life Cycle from a Design Perspective ........................................... 33 4.4.2 Survey Life Cycle from a Quality Perspective .......................................... 35 4.4.3 Sample Design ........................................................................................... 38 4.5 Contributions..................................................................................................... 40 Chapter 5: JULIE – Web Survey Framework ............................................................ 41 5.1 Ruby on Rails .................................................................................................... 42 5.2 JULIE Application ............................................................................................ 44 5.3 Controller .......................................................................................................... 45 5.3.1 Controller – Session ................................................................................... 46 5.3.2 Controller – Survey .................................................................................... 47 5.3.3 Controller – Scenario ................................................................................. 48 5.3.4 Controller – Check ..................................................................................... 48 5.4 Model ................................................................................................................ 49 5.4.1 Model – Questions ..................................................................................... 49 5.4.2 Model – Choice Experiments ..................................................................... 53 5.4.3 Model – Other Classes ............................................................................... 54 5.4.4 Model – Survey .......................................................................................... 56 5.4.5 Model – JULIA DSL ................................................................................. 57 iv 5.4.6 Model – JULIA Interpreter ........................................................................ 59 5.4.7 Model – Database ...................................................................................... 60 5.5 View .................................................................................................................. 60 5.5.1 Survey View............................................................................................... 61 5.5.2 Scenario View ............................................................................................ 62 5.6 JULIE Survey Administration .......................................................................... 63 Chapter 6: Results – Descriptive Statistics ................................................................ 64 6.1 Socioeconomics Results .................................................................................... 64 6.2 Current Vehicle Characteristics ........................................................................ 72 6.3 Stated Preference Games Results...................................................................... 78 6.3.1 Vehicle Technology Game Results ............................................................ 79 6.3.2 Fuel Technology Game Results ................................................................