INFLUENCE OF PRE-TRIP INFORMATION ON TRAVELER'S CHOICE BEHAVIOR

The influence of pre-trip information at home on travelers' choice behavior was examined. Choice data for departure time, destination, travel mode, and route were obtained from 200 commuters to Hiroshima city center by stated preference experiments. The experiment was set up on the assumption that information on travel time, cost, congestion, and wait time at car parks for work and shopping trips was presented before leaving home. Discrete choice models of the logit type were developed within the context of mode and departure time choices. First, the estimation results of mode choice models indicated that the level of travel service given by pre-trip information is approximately four times more important than the daily experienced level. It was also shown that the estimated weight for informed values under unusual condition is similar to that under usual condition. The second fact obtained was that traveler's mode choice behavior for unusual conditions can be described with a higher level of accuracy by including pre-trip information in modeling than that for usual conditions. Finally, by developing nested logit models for mode and departure time choice, it was found that there exists a difference in travelers' choice structure between usual and unusual travel conditions. Travelers tend to decide their departure time and travel mode at the same time for usual cases, while they decide mode choice before departure time choice for unusual cases.