Experimental design influences on stated choice outputs: An empirical study in air travel choice

Discrete choice experiments are conducted in the transport field to obtain data for investigating travel behaviour and derived measures such as the value of travel time savings. The multinomial logit (MNL) and other more advanced discrete choice models (e.g., the mixed MNL model) have often been estimated on data from stated choice experiments and applied for planning and policy purposes. Determining efficient underlying experimental designs for these studies has become an increasingly important stream of research, in which the objective is to generate stated choice tasks that maximize the collected information, yielding more reliable parameter estimates. These theoretical advances have not been rigorously tested in practice, such that claims on whether the theoretical efficiency gains translate into practice cannot be made. Using an extensive empirical study of air travel choice behaviour, this paper presents for the first time results of different stated choice experimental design approaches, in which respective estimation results are compared. We show that D-efficient designs keep their promise in lowering standard errors in estimating, thereby requiring smaller sample sizes, ceteris paribus, compared to a more traditional orthogonal design. The parameter estimates found using an orthogonal design or an efficient design turn out to be statistically different in several cases, mainly attributed to more or less dominant alternatives existing in the orthogonal design. Furthermore, we found that small designs with a limited number of choice tasks performs just as good (or even better) than a large design. Finally, we show that theoretically predicted sample sizes using the so-called S-estimates provide a good lower bound. This paper will enable practitioners in better understanding the potential benefits of efficient designs, and enables policy makers to make decisions based on more reliable parameter estimates.     

Carpooling and carpool clubs: Clarifying concepts and assessing value enhancement possibilities through a Stated Preference web survey in Lisbon, Portugal

The increase of urban traffic congestion calls for studying alternative measures for mobility management, and one of these measures is carpooling. In theory, these systems could lead to great reductions in the use of private vehicles; however, in practice they have obtained limited success for two main reasons: the psychological barriers associated with riding with strangers and poor schedule flexibility. To overcome some of the limitations of the traditional schemes, we proposed studying a carpooling club model with two main new features: establishing a base trust level for carpoolers to find compatible matches for traditional groups and at the same time allowing to search for a ride in an alternative group when the pool member has a trip schedule different from the usual one. A web-based survey was developed for the Lisbon Metropolitan Region (Portugal), including a Stated Preference experiment, to test the concept and confirm previous knowledge on these systems’ determinants. It was found through a binary logit Discrete Choice Model calibration that carpooling is still attached with lower income strata and that saving money is still an important reason for participating in it. The club itself does not show promise introducing more flexibility in these systems; however, it should provide a way for persons to interact and trust each other at least to the level of working colleagues.     

Transport and society1

In 1963, the Buchanan Report in the UK advocated a combination of new road capacity, improved public transport and traffic restraint as a means to tackle congestion. Forty years on, and the advice from many transport experts remains the same. However, the scale and complexity of the problems associated with a mobility‐dependent society have grown. The need for politicians to make tough but realistic policy decisions on transport is now becoming unavoidable. They must confront the realities of living with the car as must the general public. Policymakers now also have social well‐being and sustainable development moving higher on their agendas alongside transport. Against such a backdrop, the paper makes the case for transport research, policy and practice to acknowledge more fully the inherent links between transport and society. It argues that greater recognition and understanding of such links is crucial to confronting the present realities. Transport does not merely serve society: it shapes society, as in turn society shapes transport. The future of each is dependent on the other, and this fact must be recognized. The paper advocates in turn that the transport profession must move from its heartlands in engineering and economics also to embrace more fully such disciplines as sociology and psychology. A factual picture of the many facets of present‐day society is presented and the implications for travel demand are discussed. Through considering phenomena such as social norms and habitual behaviour, it is then argued that the travel choices and behaviour of individuals are not simply a matter of economic optimization. This points to the need for decision‐makers to be furnished with better evidence about the transport problems faced and the potential efficacy of measures that might be taken. Discussion of public attitudes and the role of the media are included in the context of assessing how politicians can be encouraged and supported in their implementation of realistic but unpopular policies. Evidence and experience within the paper are UK based, although many of the issues and arguments apply world wide.     

Commuters’ willingness-to-pay for improvement of transfer facilities in and around metro stations – A case study in Kolkata

Although several cities in India are developing the metro system, there are lacunas associated with transfer facilities in and around metro stations. The present work aims to investigate the perception of commuters of Kolkata city, India in terms of their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for improvement of transfer facilities. A stated preference survey instrument was designed to collect choice responses from metro commuters and the database was analysed by developing random parameter logit (RPL) models. The decomposition effects of various socioeconomic and trip characteristics on mean estimates were also investigated in random parameter logit models with heterogeneity. The work indicates significantly high WTP of metro commuters as compared to the average metro fare for improvement of various qualitative attributes of transfer facility such as ‘facility for level change’, ‘visual communication’, ‘pedestrian crossing’, and ‘pedestrian environment’. The WTP values are also found to vary across different groups of commuter formed on the basis of ‘trip purpose’, ‘monthly household income’, ‘station type’ and ‘metro fare’. ‘Work trip’ commuters are found to have higher WTP for improvement of access time, pedestrian environment and use of an escalator over the elevator. On the other hand, ‘high-income group’ commuters have shown higher WTP for improvement of access time, pedestrian crossing, and pedestrian environment. While ‘high fare group’ commuters have higher WTP for access time and pedestrian environment, heterogeneity is also observed in WTP for facility for level change, pedestrian crossing, and pedestrian environment across commuters using different ‘station type’ (underground, at-grade, and elevated). The findings from the study provide a basis for formulating policies for the improvement of transfer facilities in and around metro stations giving due attention to the preference of commuters having different socioeconomic and trip characteristics.     

Expanding scope of hybrid choice models allowing for mixture of social influences and latent attitudes: Application to intended purchase of electric cars

Recently, policy makers’ expectations about the role of electric cars in reducing emissions have risen substantially. In parallel, academic research on purchase intentions has dramatically increased. Originally, most studies have focused on utility attributes and price. More recently, several hybrid choice models have been estimated to include the impact of attitudes on choice probabilities. In addition, a few studies have caught the attention to social influence. In contributing to this line of research, this paper reports the results of an expanded hybrid choice, which simultaneously estimated all these different effects in a single integrated model of purchase intention. Results indicate that the model performs well. Costs considerations contribute most to the utility of electric cars. Social influence is less important, but there is also evidence that people tend to take it into consideration when there are positive public opinions about electric cars and the market share becomes almost half of friends of their social network. The intention to purchase an electric car is also influenced by attitudes about environmental concerns and technology acceptance.     

Adapting interactive stated response techniques to a self-completion survey

We report here on how we adapted Interactive Stated Response Methods to use in a self-completion survey of 454 California households to measure the market for electric vehicles in California. Electric vehicles are a novel product and have many features unfamiliar to consumers, in particular their home recharging capability and limited range. Reflexive techniques were designed to draw households into a deeper exploration of the lifestyle implications of electric vehicles than can be done in more typical self-completion surveys, and to stimulate key decision processes previously observed in detailed gaming interviews with 51 households. Reflexive self-completion techniques provide a middle course between typical large sample quantitative surveys and small sample, detailed gaming interviews. One of the benefits of the more intensive techniques was that participants reported finding the surveys interesting and return rates were high for a self-completion approach – over sixty percent. We review previous transportation and sociological methods which inspired our design, describe the design goals and features of our research, and summarize research results pertinent to testing the validity of our approach.     

Passengers’ willingness to pay for airport ground access time savings

There are cases when passengers are willing to pay a premium to reduce the travel time, in particular when the trip has to be made. This paper aims to provide insight into factors that determine passengers’ willingness to pay to reduce travel time for their ground access to an airport. A methodology is developed that comprises two steps: the identification of the passengers with zero willingness to pay and from the rest the estimation of the additional price they are willing to pay to reduce their travel time. For the first step a Probit model was formulated and for the second a linear regression model. To this purpose, data has been collected employing stated preference from passengers at the Athens International Airport. It has been found that a high percentage of passengers have zero willingness to pay, and of the remaining ones those using public transport have a significant willingness to pay to reduce access travel time. The methodology and the models are structured in such a way that their transferability to any airport environment is possible, thus providing a useful tool for decisions relating to airport ground access measures.     

Use of an activity-based diary to collect household travel data

The paper describes the results of a pilot survey that used a one-day activity diary to collect origin-destination data, as opposed to a travel-based diary. The design of the diary is discussed, together with a comparison to a more conventional travel diary. The paper examines the extent to which the activity diary appears to have been capable of collecting good travel data that is at least comparable to travel diary efforts. In addition, a substantial portion of the paper is concerned with a comparison of the retrieval methods for the diaries. Two alternative methods were pilot-tested, one being the use of telephone retrieval and the other being mailback retrieval. Although the pilot test used small samples, the evidence appears to be strong that mailback is preferable to telephone retrieval, while telephone retrieval did not seem capable of providing some of the benefits often ascribed to it.     

Measurement biases in panel data

The objective of this paper is to examine reporting errors in panel data obtained from multi-day travel diaries. A distinction is made between within and between wave biases. The former leads to an increase in under-reporting associated with the number of days the diary is kept. The latter is related to the number of waves respondents have been participating, so-called panel experience. These biases imply that observed mobility changes between waves are partly due to reporting errors: without controlling for them, changes in mobility can not be inferred from the data. An important cause of these measurement errors is the increase in the number of days on which no trips at all were reported. In addition, shorter trips and less complex chains are more susceptible to underreporting. The methodology used in this paper provides a means of dealing with these problems. Attrition is taken into account by a rather simple measure. The paper concludes with a number of suggestions for sample and survey design.     

CFD技术在重卡领域的应用综述

近年来,随着计算机软硬件技术的迅速发展,蓬勃兴起的计算流体力学(CFD-ComputationalFluid Dynamics)为汽车性能设计开辟了一条新的途径。CFD软件也逐渐大量应用于重卡设计过程中。本文详细介绍了目前国内外应用最为广泛的几大商业CFD软件以及在重卡领域的应用。