The Day Activity Schedule Approach to Travel Demand Analysis by John L. Bowman Submitted to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Transportation Systems and Decision Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology May 1998 © 1998 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved Signature of Author___________________________________________________________ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering May 22, 1998 Certified by_________________________________________________________________ Moshe Ben-Akiva Edmund K. Turner Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Thesis Supervisor Accepted by________________________________________________________________ Joseph M. Sussman Chairman, Departmental Committee on Graduate Studies The Day Activity Schedule Approach to Travel Demand Analysis by John L. Bowman Submitted to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering on May 22, 1998 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Transportation Systems and Decision Sciences Abstract This study develops a model of a person’s day activity schedule that can be used to forecast urban travel demand. It is motivated by the notion that travel outcomes are part of an activity scheduling decision, and uses discrete choice models to address the basic modeling problem—capturing decision interactions among the many choice dimensions of the immense activity schedule choice set. An integrated system of choice models represents a person’s day activity schedule as an activity pattern and a set of tours. A pattern model identifies purposes, priorities and structure of the day’s activities and travel. Conditional tour models describe timing, location and access mode of on-tour activities. The system captures trade-offs people consider, when faced with space and time constraints, among patterns that can include at-home and on-tour activities, multiple tours and trip chaining. It captures sensitivity of pattern choice to activity and travel conditions through a measure of expected tour utility arising from the tour models. When travel and activity conditions change, the relative attractiveness of patterns changes because expected tour utility changes differently for different patterns. An empirical implementation of the model system for Portland, Oregon, establishes the feasibility of specifying, estimating and using it for forecasting. Estimation results match a priori expectations of lifestyle effects on activity selection, including those of (a) household structure and role, such as for females with children, (b) capabilities, such as income, and (c) activity commitments, such as usual work levels. They also confirm the significance of activity and travel accessibility in pattern choice. Application of the model with road pricing and other policies demonstrates its lifestyle effects and how it captures pattern shifting—with accompanying travel changes—that goes undetected by more narrowly focused trip-based and tour-based systems. Although the model has not yet been validated in before-and-after prediction studies, this study gives strong evidence of its behavioral soundness, current practicality, potential to generate cost-effective predictions superior to those of the best existing systems, and potential for enhanced implementations as computing technology advances. Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Moshe Ben-Akiva Title: Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering 5 Biographical Note John L. Bowman’s research interests lie in the development of disaggregate models of individual and household lifestyle, mobility, activity and travel behavior, to inform public land use, transport, environmental and welfare policy. He has taught a graduate demand modeling course at MIT. Dr. Bowman received the degree of Master of Science in Transportation from MIT in 1995, and the degree of Bachelor of Science in mathematics, summa cum laude, in 1977 from Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Before his study of transportation he worked for 14 years in systems development, product development and management for an insurance and financial services firm. Publications of which Dr. Bowman is co-author include “Travel Demand Model System for the Information Era”, Transportation 23: 241-266, 1996; “Integration of an Activity-based Model System and a Residential Location Model”, Urban Studies 35 (7): 1231-1253, 1998; and “Activity based Travel Demand Models”, in Proceedings of the Equilibrium and Advanced Transportation Modeling Colloquium, University of Montreal Center for Research on Transport, 1998. Acknowledgments This research was supported by the United States Department of Transportation through an Eisenhower Fellowship, with additional funds supplied by federal research grants provided through the New England Region University Transportation Program. I wish to express gratitude to the many people who contributed directly and indirectly to the completion of this thesis. Professor Moshe Ben-Akiva, my advisor and committee chairman, first suggested the idea of modeling an entire day’s activity and travel schedule, then provided the guidance I needed to bring it to fruition. Members of my doctoral committee were very helpful. Professor Michel Bierlaire has supplied many ideas for the direction and content of my research. Professor Rabi Mishalani began giving me welcome guidance and encouragement the first year I arrived at MIT, and has not stopped since. Professor Nigel Wilson gave very helpful comments on my thesis draft. Mark Bradley has been my partner in research and development. He took my designs and turned them into a practical production system in Portland, provided data I needed for model development, produced forecasts included in this thesis, and wrote early drafts of materials in the thesis related to the Portland model system. Keith Lawton of Portland Metro saw an early version of the day activity schedule model and became the principal sponsor who made 6 The Day Activity Schedule Approach to Travel Demand Analysis the Portland implementation a possibility. Tom Rossi supported the effort to fund development of the Portland day activity schedule model through a Cambridge Systematics federal task order contract. I learned much from these three about what it takes to turn academic research into useful innovation. Staffan Algers, Alex Anas, Kay Axhausen, Chandra Bhat, Ennio Cascetta, Dick Ettema, Konstadinos Goulias, Ryuichi Kitamura, Frank Koppelman, Eric Miller, Taka Morikawa, Kai Nagel, Eric Pas, Yoram Shiftan, Harry Timmermans and Peter Vovsha are academics from around the world who have directly contributed, in one way or another, to the intellectual substance of my work. Andrew Daly expeditiously increased the capacity of his estimation software, ALOGIT, when I really needed it. Julie Bernardi has taken care of countless details for proposals, equipment, supplies, papers, reports and presentations leading to this thesis. Steve Perone, Kyung-Hwa Kim, Karen Larson, Bob Knight and Phil Wuest of Portland Metro provided me with data I needed and some of them accepted the task of taking my work immediately from the research laboratory into a real world application. Professor Ismail Chabini gave enthusiastic support of me and my work, and insightful suggestions on presenting them to others. Professor Joseph Sussman provided encouragement throughout my stay at MIT. Kevin Tierney, Kimon Proussaloglou, Earl Ruiter and Nagaswar Jonnalagada, colleagues at Cambridge Systematics, made my summers enriching, enjoyable and important times of intellectual ferment. John Abraham, Reinhard Clever, Sean Doherty, Shinwon Kim, Catherine Lawson, Jun Ma, Amr Mahmoud and Jack Wen are fellow students in my field with whom I’ve enjoyed discussing ideas. Kazi Ahmed, Kalidas Ashok, Omar Baba, Adriana Bernardino, Jon Bottom, Chris Caplice, Jiang Chang, Owen Chen, Yan Dong, Prodyut Dutt, Xu Jun Eberlein, Andras Farkas, Dinesh Gopinath, Mark Hickman, Hong Jin, Daeki Kim, Amalia Polydoropoulou, Scott Ramming, Daniel Roth, Dan Turk, Joan Walker and Qi Yang are current and former fellow transportation students at MIT, with whom I have shared stimulating conversation and the camaraderie of graduate student life. Finally, I thank my wife, Joanne, for her unfailing support, my children, Sarah and Phillip, for their patience throughout the last six years, and my parents, Roy and Verna, for teaching me to pursue my dreams. 7 Contents ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................... 3 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ................................................................................................................................... 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................................................... 5 CONTENTS ................................................................................................................................................... 7 FIGURES .................................................................................................................................................... 10 TABLES...................................................................................................................................................... 11 1 INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY................................................................................................