The Influence of Trip Context on Multi-modal Travel Choices

In this paper, a comprehensive multi-modal choice model is extended with trip contexts. The model is estimated from a series of stated choice experiments in which respondents choose between (multi-modal) mode alternatives which were nested under a second design that varied trips contexts. Choice alternatives and trip distances were varied across the experiments and involved bicycle, car, public transport and park-and-ride travel options depending on trip distance. The context variables involved weather conditions, travel party, amount of baggage, arrival time flexibility, time of day and trip purpose. A representative sample of 2,746 individuals participated in the experiments. 62 significant effects of the context variables on mode constants and route and mode attributes were found. Although most results were in expected directions, some results were unexpected but provide interesting new insights. This especially applies to findings for the contexts arrival time flexibility and baggage which suggest that if no constraints apply in a trip, travelers are less averse to making a transfer and they respond more strongly to differences in travel times and (none-car related) costs and consequently they are more inclined to switch to a mode that performs better in these respects. Examples of other findings are that travelers become more sensitive to various travel time components when they are traveling with a child and that in good weather travelers are less sensitive to travel time by car but are more sensitive to public-transport time components.