Route Choice Behaviour at Mass Events Stated- versus Revealed Preferences of Pedestrian Route Choices at SAIL Amsterdam 2015 I.M. Galama University of Technology Delft ROUTE CHOICE BEHAVIOUR AT MASS EVENTS STATED- VERSUS REVEALED PREFERENCESOF PEDESTRIAN ROUTE CHOICES AT SAIL AMSTERDAM 2015 by I.M. Galama in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Transport, Infrastructure and Logistics at the Delft University of Technology to be defended publicly on 18th of February 2016 Supervisor: Prof. dr. ir. S.P.Hoogendoorn TU Delft Thesis committee: Dr. ir. W. Daamen TU Delft Dr. J.A. Annema TU Delft Drs. M. Hünneman SAIL PREFACE This master thesis is conducted on behalf of the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute) and as the final part of the master Transport, Infrastructure and Logistics at the Delft Univer- sity of Technology. This thesis is based on both an online survey and revealed data, which is collected at SAIL Amsterdam 2015. The aim of this thesis is to gain more knowledge about route choice behaviour of pedestri- ans at mass events. Before proceeding with the findings, I would like to thank my supervisors Serge Hoogendoorn, Winnie Daamen, Jan Anne Annema and Mark Hünneman for their feedback and help during our regular meetings and the fruitful discussions at the more informal moments. The AMS Institute for facilitating the research at SAIL, and Edwin and Peter for their help during the event itself. The members of the PED-meetings for their substantive feedback. Furthermore, I would like to thank everyone who has actively contributed to the con- tent of my thesis. Special thanks to Fieke, Hidde, Margot, Anouk, Matthijs and Lidewij for giving their valuable contribution in the brainstorm session. Many thanks to all respondents who filled in the online survey and those who participated in the GPS-tracker research at SAIL -fortunately too many to mention by name. Besides, I would like to thank those who helped me relax and put things in perspective, alongside the hard work of writing this thesis. Dear friends, family, Mmilka, team-mates and fellow graduation-students, thanks for the lovely moments, coffees, matches, drinks and dinners together. Finally, special thanks to my parents, my sisters -Josien and Nienke- and Willem, who truly helped me by their unconditional support and with finalizing the last bits and pieces. Hopefully you will enjoy reading this thesis, and get inspired for your own future explorations. I.M. Galama Delft, February 2016 iii SUMMARY Nowadays, mass events are a returning phenomena all over the world. But it is shown that information about the behaviour of pedestrians during these mass events is scarce. The years of experience of crowd managers is currently essential for managing events. This information, however, is not always adequate and is missing quantitative measures. As is experienced during previous mass events, they can bring huge safety risks and can cause major incidents (e.g Love Parade in Germany). Therefore, more knowledge is required about crowd behaviour to manage mass events and to prevent such disasters from happening in the future. The aim of this master thesis was to provide more insight into the behaviour of pedestrians at mass events. The focus has been their route choice behaviour, as this plays a major role in the management of crowds. This insight was provided by both stated preference (SP) and revealed preference (RP) research, since both have their pros and cons. Besides, the comparison of both research methods was expected to give interesting re- sults. SAIL Amsterdam 2015 was used as a case study and as the base for the research. SAIL has grown to become the largest public event in the Netherlands and the largest free nautical event in the world. The objective of this thesis was twofold. On the one hand, based on two methods of data collection, SP (online survey) and RP (GPS-trackers), factors of influence on pedestrian route choices were studied and their corresponding parameter values were estimated with Multi Nominal Logit (MNL) models. On the other hand, since the two methods are both analysing SAIL, the findings of the methods -and thus the quality of SP and RP methods- were compared. The objective formed two research questions: 1. Which attributes -and to what extend- influence the stated- (SP) or the revealed preferences (RP) of pedes- trian route choice behaviour at the mass event SAIL? 2. How do the attributes that influence the pedestrian route choice behaviour at the mass event SAIL, corre- spond for stated- (SP) and revealed preference (RP) studies? Firstly, a literature review was conducted. It showed that pedestrian behaviour can be assessed by means of their choice behaviour, categorized in the strategic, tactical and operational level. Route choice behaviour is part of the tactical level and depends on the choice maker, choice set (alternative routes), attributes of alter- natives and the decision rules of the choice maker. Multiple attributes of influence were found in literature, but the influence on mass events was -to the knowledge of the author- not studied thoroughly. For research- ing choice behaviour of pedestrians discrete choice models are widely used. In this thesis a MNL model was be used, as this is a reliable model for pedestrian route choice behaviour and it is a good model to give a first insights into the attributes. Secondly, a brainstorm session was held, in order to detail which attributes are of influence at mass events, resulting in a list of attributes. These attributes, combined with those resulting from the literature re- view, were assessed in a Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA). This led to nine possible attributes, of which six were selected for further analysis, as they were usable in both the SP and RP research. These attributes are attrac- tions (tall ships, music stages), crowdedness, signs (or following the main route), road size, trees and water. At the start of the SP research, a pilot survey was conducted. The main target was finding prior values for the attributes and test if the respondents understood the choices they were asked to make. Respondents had to select their preferred route based on two photos, each containing different attributes. After the pilot, an efficient final survey was designed, containing eight choice sets. The final SP survey had 177 respondents. The average age was relatively low, education level relatively high and household income low again, if compared to the Dutch average. Presumably, most respondents were students from the Delft University of Technology. It is not known if this sample is representative for the visitors of SAIL. Within this homogeneous group of respondents, significant correlations between their characteristics and experience at mass events were found. However, due to the missing variety in the sample, these characteristics were not considered in the route choice models. v vi 0.S UMMARY The SP results show that the extend of influence of each attribute differs per MNL model. The most ac- curate model (½2 of 0.189), showed that five out of six attributes were significant: attractions (1.160), crowd- edness (-1.870), road size (0.253), trees (-0.193) and water (0.334). The attribute crowdedness was significant in all MNL models, and always has the highest repellent value. Much variation was found for the models in- cluding attractions and signs. In which signs was most regularly found negative, as was unexpected based on literature. These varying results might be mainly driven by the inaccurate design of the survey choice sets. A more thorough pilot survey could circumvent this issue in the future. During SAIL, the RP research was held. One hundred GPS-trackers were distributed daily at Amsterdam Central station to visitors of SAIL. A total of 322 trips were collected over five days, of which 155 took place in the main area of interest for this thesis (station to Kop van Java). The participants were mostly elderly couples. At SAIL most trips (60-70%) followed the main indicated route when they started their trip at the station. More differentiation was found in the routes when the pedestrians returned to the station. At the Java-eiland the return trips are somewhat equally distributed over the alternative routes: pedestrians go either back via the Javakade (this is the main route up), keep following the main route, or take a short cut somewhere on the island. From the Verbindingsdam to the station most trips (> 50%) take a short cut somewhere at the Veemkade. The other trips either take public transportation (> 10%), return via the Veemkade, keep following the main route, or take a specific short cut at the Vriesseveem. The attributes of influence were estimated in multiple MNL models, distinguished by four different Origin Destination (OD)-pairs in the area of interest. For each alternative route the six attribute values were deter- mined via two methods: binary and scalar. The binary method assigned zeros and ones to the alternatives, but was found to be too arbitrary and gave no significant parameter values in the models. The scalar method estimated the share of the attributes on the routes’ total length. For crowdedness the WiFi sensors were used to estimate the pedestrian splits per route. A large variation was found between the result which captured the way up and the way back. This change in behaviour cannot be explained fully in this study, and is interesting to research in future RP studies. Crowd- edness was the only attribute which was significant in most models, particularly on the way up, and had a highly attractive value (opposite as was found for the SP data). It was found that some of the attributes seem to have a strong correlation.