Information impact on quality of multimodal travel choices: conceptualizations and empirical analyses

This paper investigates the impact of a variety of travel information types on the quality of travel choices. Choice quality is measured by comparing observed choices made under conditions of incomplete knowledge with predicted choice probabilities under complete knowledge. Furthermore, the potential impact of travel information is considered along multiple attribute-dimensions of alternatives, rather than in terms of travel time reductions only. Data is obtained from a choice experiment in a multimodal travel simulator in combination with a web-based mode-choice experiment. A Structural Equation Model is estimated to test a series of hypothesized direct and indirect relations between a traveler’s knowledge levels, information acquisition behavior and the resulting travel-choice quality. The estimation results support the hypothesized relations, which provides evidence of validity and applicability of the developed measure of travel-choice quality. Furthermore, found relations in general provide some careful support for the often expected impact of information on the quality of travel choices. The effects are largest for information services that generate previously unknown alternatives, and lowest for services that provide warnings in case of high travel times only.

Caspar G. ChorusEmail:

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Caspar Chorus   holds a PhD in Technical Sciences (cum laude) from Delft University of Technology, and is currently an Assistant Professor at Eindhoven University of Technology’s Urban Planning Group. His general interests include traveler behavior research / decision making under knowledge limitations / discrete choice analysis. Theo Arentze   received a Ph.D. in Decision Support Systems for urban planning from the Eindhoven University of Technology. He is now an Associate Professor at the Urban Planning Group at the same university. His main fields of expertise and current research interests are decision support systems, activity-based modeling, discrete choice modeling, knowledge discovery and learning-based systems with applications in urban and transport planning. Harry Timmermans   received a Ph.D. in Spatial Sciences from the University of Nijmegen. He is Chair of the Urban Planning Group and Director of the European Institute of Retailing and Consumer Services. His main fields of expertise concern behavioral modeling, consumer studies and computer systems in a variety of application contexts including transportation.